


Sinister Kid

by anaranjada



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Dead animals, F/M, Frank's dad, Gen, Grooming, Hitmen, Murder, modern stuff in future chapters, obviously, psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 46,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaranjada/pseuds/anaranjada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When people speculate about Frank's background--or his morals--he puts them off with mob-movie plotlines and hollow platitudes on goodness. He doesn't tell anyone what--<i>who</i>--made him what he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited as of 2-5-16 for the sake of continuity; sorry for any confusion!

Frank Delfino saw his first dead man at the age of ten, in a middle-class bedroom in south Philly. He was ugly man, before death and after: forty-five or fifty, though his liver spots said older; deep-set yellowed eyes, shot red; a beer gut above his boxers, pale chicken legs below. _Mismatched,_ Frank remembers thinking. _Not right._

It started past midnight, on a Tuesday. “So you’ll have the flu tomorrow,” his dad had said when he woke him. “You’ve faked it before. Get up. We’re goin’ out.” 

They picked their way across the room, (“Don’t wake ‘em,” his father said, eyes flitting to the other beds, where John and Tony slept on), then down the stairs, past his parents’ room, then out the door and into the night. January, freezing; his father handed him his puffy parka as they left, but no gloves, no hat, like he’d wear if his mother were near. Just his PJs underneath. “Gotta hurry,” his dad muttered. “‘S late.” 

They drove for a long time; he watched the buildings grow shiny and new out his window, the lawns grow wide, the streets grow broad. Watched the world spruce up. He didn’t ask where they were going, just kicked the glove box till his dad told him to cut it the fuck out. The radiator rattled. He tapped his feet, shivered. Nobody turned on the radio. 

They pulled up between the headlights, where it was darkest. Frank remembers that. “Gotta walk from here,” his father said. “Come on. Up. Out.” Frank didn’t want to walk. His feet hung out of the heels of his sneakers--he hadn’t had a chance to pull them on properly--and went numb almost instantly. When he fell behind, his father glanced back, eyes sharp and bright in the dark. “You wanna get left?” he said. Didn’t even sound upset, really--certainly not mad--but Frank shook his head, and didn’t lag twice. 

They walked for a long time, his father pausing occasionally to peer up at a house, check its number, and carry on. Finally, they stopped.

“Now, we’re gonna go in there,” his father said, “and we gotta be real quiet, alright? I gotta do somethin’, and it’s...no good. No good at all. And I’m not gonna _like_ doin’ it, see, but if I don’t, someone else will, and it’s gotta get done. You hear me?” Frank nodded. Stepped from foot to foot, like he had to pee. Tried to regain circulation in his legs.

“You gotta promise me you won’t say anything, okay? Gotta promise you’ll stay quiet. Can you do that?” Frank nodded again. “Okay. Let’s go, then. Come on.” 

They crossed the long lawn and found themselves in front of a broad white house, trimmed black, with a little brass knocker on the door. Frank had an urge to grab it, to knock, to shout trick-or-treat. He didn’t--of course he didn’t. His father pulled a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket, slipped them on, and reached right for the knob before glancing back at Frank, at his bone-white, gloveless hands. “Shit,” he muttered. “Don’t you touch anything, alright? Nothing. Not the wall. Not the banister. If you do touch somethin’ show me where, soon as we’re done. Got it?” He didn’t wait for Frank’s nod this time. 

The door was unlocked, and swung open easily. It was warm inside, so warm it almost burned Frank’s frostbitten skin. Still, he was quiet as they ascended the stairs. One creaked, and his father’s hand was on his arm in an instant, squeezing tight. He blew air through his teeth, a quiet “shh,” and they stood silent for a moment before carrying on. The hand stayed on Frank’s arm all the way up, nails biting sharp into dwindling baby fat. Still, Frank was quiet.

(Frank remembers, most of all, the portrait at the top of the stairs: oil paint on thick canvas, a soft-lit image of a couple and two boys Frank’s age. Later, he’ll know the man--years younger in the painting, hair grayed respectably but solidly present--as the corpse on the floor. He’ll look at the boys again on his way out, and wonder.) 

They turned left, and were met with an open bedroom door. Frank could see a king-sized bed against the far wall, one lump under the covers. He turned back to his father, who raised a finger to his lips, lowered his other hand to Frank’s back, and led him in. 

The man didn’t wake when they entered, or when they approached the bed. Didn’t stir, in fact, till Frank’s father’s hands were around his throat. Then, his eyes sprang open. Gazed first at Frank’s father, of course, but turned, at one point, to Frank’s own face. Into his eyes. Frank turned away, but couldn’t help looking back, once, twice, again and again until it was over. At the face, going red, then purple, then blue; at the eyes, growing larger, larger, scared then still and glassy. At his father’s thick fingers, straining and pushing, and his arms, ramrod straight and near motionless. It was quiet, overall. A few grunts--from the man, from Frank’s father, from the bedsprings below--then it was done. Frank did not make a sound. 

When it was over, his father turned to him, face serious and red. Not angry; maybe a little tired. “It’s done,” he said. “That’s it. You wanna see?”

He didn’t, but he nodded, and stepped closer to the bed. Peered down into the ugly man’s face, made worse, so much worse, by…what had happened. By what his father had done.

“Dead,” Frank said, finally. “He’s dead. Right?”

“Yeah. Yeah he is. Do you remember what I told you earlier?”

It felt like all Frank did that night was nod. 

“Tell me. Tell me what I said.”

“He had to die. You had to kill him. If you didn’t, somebody else would.”

“Exactly. And it’s bad, and it’s sad--he was a person, like you and me--but it had to happen. You understand?”

He didn’t, not at all, but he nodded again, because it was his father and he looked so damn certain Frank would get it, and Frank has always, always, hated to disappoint. He nodded while his father grabbed an ornate wooden jewelry box from the dresser--"makes it look like a robbery," he said--and kept on nodding as his father led him from the room, down the stairs, out the door, down the street. Subtly, lightly, with each step he took. He nodded all the way home, to the beat of the radio his father played full-blast.

He did not cry.

“We got one more stop,” Frank’s father said as they pulled onto an unfamiliar highway. “Shouldn’t take long.”

Frank cast a sidelong glance at his face, then. “We gonna...is it gonna happen again?”

“Nah. Nothin’ like that. We’re just gonna meet with a lady I know. Friend of mine. She’s gonna give us some money. Maybe this weekend, we can get Sunday breakfast someplace nice; how’s that sound?”

“Good,” Frank said. Quiet, as though he still had to be. He wasn’t sure he didn’t. He wasn’t sure of much, right then.

This time, they pulled up in front of a dingy motel, in a part of town not so different from their own: building upon boxy building, broken windows, flickering streetlights and shadowy figures on corners and stoops. They climbed the rusted iron stairs to the third floor, knocked on a door, and were received quickly by a portly brunette woman, dressed for the day, not the night. The woman from the portrait, Frank thought; he wasn’t sure, but he thought so. _What if she knows?_ he wondered. He forced himself to stop nodding, looked down at his feet, crossed his arms across his chest. _She must know. She’ll see it somehow. In me. In Dad._

If she knew, though, she didn’t say anything. She pulled them into the room quickly, glancing behind them before pulling the door shut. Nobody said anything: the woman nodded at Frank’s father, a question in her eyes; he nodded back; she handed over a thick envelope. They shook hands, stood, and left. Within three minutes, Frank and his father were back in the car, on their way home.

Eventually, Frank began to recognize their surroundings, and breathed a sigh of relief that he hoped his father didn’t hear. His father turned the headlights off a block from their house; when he pulled into the driveway, he turned to Frank. “Your mom don’t need to know about this, okay? Women, they get upset about this kind of thing. They don’t understand what has to happen, sometimes. They’re better than us, that way.” He chuckled at that, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “So you can’t go tellin’ her, alright? Or your brothers, neither. This is between you an’ me. Can you do that?”

What was Frank to do but nod?

“Good man. Alright, let’s get you inside. You cold?”

“Yeah.”

“You can have some cocoa before bed, if you want. That sound good?”

Frank nodded. It did. It really did.

Finally, Frank’s father sent him back to bed, belly full of warm milk and chocolate, head fuzzy, eyes still dry. Frank fell asleep almost instantly.

In the morning, it almost felt like the night before had been a dream. Nonetheless, Frank vomited almost instantly, barely making it to the hall bathroom first, missing the toilet by a solid foot. Faking the flu wasn’t hard from there: each time he pictured the bulging, reddened eyes, the sickly stare, the creaking mattress springs, he was back over the bucket his mother brought to his bedside.

His mother. God, his mother. He wanted so badly to tell her that day, each time she came in to check on him, asked him if he was okay. He trusted his father, though. More than that, he knew, even then, what it would do to her to know what he knew. And...he couldn’t. 

His father came home early that day, shouting his hellos with a smile in his voice. He came to Frank’s room as soon as he’d greeted the others downstairs. “Frankie!” he said. “You still feelin’ sick?”

Frank could see something behind his father’s eyes; a sort of wariness, and maybe even a little bit of fear. Frank had never seen fear on that face before, and once again, he felt like puking. When he started to lean over, though, his father rushed in, sat on the bed beside him, and schooled his features into something like a smile. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, voice lowered. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You did real good, son. I can tell. You didn’t say nothin’, did you?” It wasn’t a real question this time; his voice was laced with pride. “Good man. I knew you could do it.”

Frank couldn’t help crying, then, and his father let him, rubbing his back and muttering, occasionally, about how everything would be fine. “Frankie,” he said, “I know how it is. I’ve been there. Been like you; scared, guilty, whatever. But lemme tell you something: it gets better. Give it a day, two days, and you’ll feel better. Okay?”

Frank nodded, but the tears didn’t stop. He met his father’s gaze, fleetingly, before returning his eyes to his lap. “I dunno,” he said. “It was...bad. And...who was he? Why’d you have to…?”

His father sighed. _Disappointed?_ Frank’s breathing hitched. When he spoke, though, his voice was even and, Frank thought, perhaps still a bit proud. “You’re a good kid, Frankie. You’re sad for the guy, and rightly so. But look at me. I done this before. This ain’t the first time. And you know what?” He smiled. “I’m still the same guy. Still your dad. D’you think your dad’s a bad guy?”

Frank shook his head. Gave no indication of his own niggling doubts. His father slapped him on the back. “I’m not!” he said. "I’m really not. And neither are you, kid. Nothin’ll make you a bad guy. You can trust me on that, okay?” Frank nodded.

Frank expected that to be it, but before he could lie back down, turn back to the wall, his father reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and haned it to Frank. "Got somethin' for you," he said. "'S from the house. I gotta get rid of most of it, but I want you to have this."

It was a necklace, a golden chain with a small oval pendant hanging from it. Frank turned it over and over in his hands; cold, but smooth and somehow comforting. On one side of the pendant was a a bearded man holding a child; on the other were some initials: JLP. 

"St. Christopher," his father said. "Wear this, and he'll protect you. Sounds silly--'M not a church man--but these work, so. Thought I'd give it to you. Put it on."

Frank did; it was not a large piece, but it hung heavy on his neck. "Thanks," he said, quietly. 

“Now,” his father said, his voice a bit louder, “you think you can eat somethin’? You feelin’ better enough for that?”

He didn’t wait for an answer; just stood and, on his way to the door, shot a wink and a grin back at his son.

Moments later, Frank followed him. And he ate. And he felt better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the Black Keys song by the same name.


	2. Chapter 2

For a few months after that, nothing happened. Frank didn’t forget, of course; it lingered, always, behind sports games and homework assignments and family dinners. But he pushed it back, saw the thoughts coming and shut his brain-door to them. Filled his mind with other things, with the characters in the books he read. (He’d never read so much in his damn life; his teachers were impressed, and said as much to his mother at parent-teacher conferences. Frank didn’t know whether to be proud or not.) 

His father was the same as he’d always been, to Frank, to everyone: happy, friendly, gentle. Kind. He’d never laid a hand on any of his boys, and he didn’t start then. Frank thought often about what he’d said, that first day After: that the body Frank saw wasn’t the first, and that it didn’t change anything. That he was still a good man. And Frank believed it; how could he not? It comforted him, when the thoughts came, to see his father, happy. To see him bouncing the new baby in his arms. Kissing his wife. Playing catch with Tony in the yard after supper. 

It happened again three months later. 

May. Warm. His father came to his room again, shook his shoulder, grinned. “C’mon,” he said. “We’re goin’ out.”

It took Frank a minute to remember what that meant. _Must_ have meant. There had been no midnight surprises in his life but the one. Nonetheless, he stood. Got dressed this time, at least, while his father waited.

“Dad,” he said, once they were in the car, “are we...are you gonna...”

His father grinned. “Smarter than you look, Frankie. Yeah, I got a special assignment today, and it went good with you there last time, so I figured I’d take you along again. That alright?”

Frank didn’t know how to answer that, but he had to say something. “Why me?” he asked, finally. 

His father looked him full in the face at that, taking his eyes off the road. “Don’t you tell the others I said this,” he said, “but you’re the strongest, Frankie. Johnny, he’s too nice. Always with those little good girls from school, sports all the time. He couldn’t handle it. And Tony’s little, still. Too little for this, and he’d tell your ma, for sure, anyway. You’re the one I can trust. Loyal.”

Frank puffed up a little at that. He’d never been as good in school as Tony, and he was pretty sure his mother still lumped him in with John and Brandy, a baby to be minded. _Loyal._ That was something. Something just for him, and he held it close.

He didn’t pay much attention to their route, that time, but they didn’t drive for long. 

They pulled up in front of a house like theirs: one flat story, midsize but worn. Enough, but nothing extra.

“Who’s in there?” Frank asked.

“You’ll see,” his father said. C’mon.”

He followed his father to the two-step stoop. This time, he was handed gloves of his own. 

He balked for a moment; wouldn’t take them. Couldn’t. “Don’t worry,” his father said. “I’m not gonna have you...jeez. You’re just a kid. None of that. It’s just in case you touch somethin’, okay? Promise.”

So he took them. Put them on. They fit perfectly.

Inside, another man. Thin, this time, and black. To Frank’s surprise, this one was awake, in the living room, in a recliner across from a flickering TV screen.

“What the _fuck!_ ” he yelled. “Get the _fuck_ out of my--”

Frank’s father was upon him instantly, hands around his throat, legs around his midsection, on the floor. Silence. Silence. Grunts of effort, but no more yelling. Frank stood across the room. Watched.

If anything, it was over quicker, that time. That time, Frank couldn’t see the man’s eyes, and Jesus, he was glad.

“Christ,” his father said, after, wiping his brow. “Jesus. Fuck.”

Frank didn’t say anything.

“Christ. Okay, come on. We gotta go. Come on.”

His father gunned the engine before Frank could get his seatbelt on, but they didn’t drive for long, not even all the way home. They pulled into a service station parking lot not fifteen blocks away from the house. Once the car was in park, the lights still off, Frank’s father turned to him. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said. “That...wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like that. Sorry.”

Frank didn’t think he could speak if he wanted to. He nodded.

“It’s almost never like that. You oughta know that. That wasn’t...I didn’t expect for you to see nothin’ like that. I’ve hardly seen anything like--”

“It’s okay,” Frank said. Didn’t expect to say, but did. Quiet. Low. “S’okay, dad. I’m okay.”

“His father looked surprised. Good surprised. Definitely proud, this time. “Tough kid,” he said. “You, you’re less freaked than me! Not little anymore, are ya. Good man.”

The joy in Frank’s chest felt sinful, even then. He tamped it down. Nodded.

Silence for awhile, then; his father didn’t restart the car. Finally, Frank spoke again, Lord knows why. “Who had you do it?” he asked.

His father’s eyes darted sharply to him again, not angry, just...alert. “Man called himself Clarence,” he said, “but that’s probably not his real name. People don’t use their real names for this kind of thing. “You don’t know him; _I_ don’t know him, really. That’s how it goes, most of the time. _Who_ doesn’t much matter, okay?”

Frank looked down. “Okay. Sorry.”

“‘S okay. Curiosity’s not bad. About this, though...you gotta just leave it be sometimes. Not knowing’s better. That make sense?” Frank nodded.

“Alright. Good. Now, we’re gonna stop before home again, pick up the money like last time, okay? You okay to do that?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good. And you know what? I’m hungry. You hungry? We can stop for burgers, alright? You want a burger?”

“No thanks,” Frank said. 

His father bought two anyway, and ate both.

Frank didn’t sleep that time, but neither did he cry. In the morning, he went to school, like normal. Read his books. Succeeded, almost, in forgetting.

***

It became routine after that; as routine, anyway, as such a thing can be. Most times were like the first: quick, quiet, almost soft around the edges. They entered; they skulked; somebody died. Men, mostly, but a couple women, too. Frank thought his father looked sadder after those, but hell, maybe not. He never looked like much, one way or another. Frank never got a good look at the money, but the wads were thick, and after a job, the food in the house was always just a little bit nicer, and their mother always smiled just a little bit more. 

Every time, it seemed, Frank’s father gestured him closer to the kill. Every time, he came. Looked. Saw. 

Every time, it got easier.

It wasn’t until Frank was twelve that his father had him...touch.

“He’s gone,” he said. “C’mere, put your gloves on. Lemme show you how it works. Don’t worry. He ain’t comin’ back. Just...put your hands...there, just like that. You feel that hard bit inside, under the skin? The tube? That’s the windpipe, where the air goes toward the lungs. Press real hard, right there. Real hard.”

Frank barely pressed at first, and his father could tell. “Nah,” he said. “Not like that. You do it like that, it’ll take forever, and it’ll hurt. Push down. Harder. _Harder._ ” 

So he did. Felt the tube-- _windpipe_ \--collapse, just a bit. The skin, he remembers--has always remembered--cooled under his gloves as he pressed, pressed, pressed. Finally, his father slapped him on the back. He flinched; his father laughed. “There you go,” he said. “You got it.”

It had been years since Frank had cried during a job, and he didn’t, he didn’t, not that time, not ever, anymore. He nodded. Blinked, blinked. Looked his father in the eyes. Almost smiled.

“Don’worry,” his father said, grinning (sadly, Frank thought; maybe?). “I ain’t gonna make you actually _do_ it. Not till you’re ready. I just wanted you to… _get_ it. To know what it is I’m doing, least a little. You okay?”

Frank nodded again, and they left.

And so a callus formed, a layer more each time, till the feel of skin and throats and windpipes and death barely fazed Frank. Soon he stepped forward automatically, after the shaking and the struggle ended, to feel the body, to Understand. Soon, he stopped flinching. Soon, it almost felt good.

No, he thought, no, not that. Not good. Not bad. Fine. Sure. _Fine._


	3. Chapter 3

In eighth-grade biology, when all the other gawky fucks vomited into the sinks or left the room when faced with formaldehyded frogs, Frank felt the sweetest tinge of pride. The smell was bad, sure, but otherwise...whatever. When his frog was delivered to his table, he wasted no time cutting; he started with the neck. 

“Frank!” yelled the nun of the hour, crossing the room in seconds and reaching for the scalpel. “That was a living creature! Show some respect. Give me that. We’re starting with the abdomen, and examining the organs in a _scientific_ fashion. Lord have mercy. Give me that.” She gave the scalpel to Frank’s lab partner, a pretty girl named Gina who never said much.

While Gina wasn’t looking, though, Frank pressed down inside his incision, one forefinger, over the windpipe. It didn’t feel so different, really, from those of the marks. Smaller. Harder, maybe. Definitely colder, and naked. But not so different.

He gestured to Gina, then, without thinking. “That’s where you press if you wanna kill someone,” he said voice lowered. “On the windpipe.”

She was horrified, of course, but for whatever goddamn reason, she giggled, and glanced Frank’s way for the rest of class when she thought he couldn’t see.

***

That sounds like some kind of turning point; it wasn’t. Just an example that stuck in Frank’s mind, years later, decades later, who knows why. That year, though, things were different. Oh, the jobs went on--once a month or so, more around holidays--but the feel of them changed. Frank realized, around then, that he had something no other thirteen-year-old would-be-badass had: a secret life. A life of violence and drama and secrecy. He was The Real Deal. He still didn’t _like_ it, really--not deep down--but hell if the James Bond rising-action music playing in the back of his mind didn’t make it all a little fun.

His father probably noticed-- _must_ have noticed, when Frank started dressing dark, slicking back his hair and bumming cigarettes from jackass uncles around the neighborhood. Must have put it together with the faint, quick smirks in the marks’ dark houses. He was a smart man. Didn’t say anything, though. Maybe smirked a little bit himself. Must have known, after all, that Frank would still never tell.

His classmates noticed, too. He fell in with the boys who kept to the back of the class, kicked their feet up on desks and bummed more than cigarettes from older brothers and strangers on the street. He caught girls’ eyes--not nice girls like Johnny brought home, either. Girls with raccoon eyes and shoplifting addictions. Older girls, sometimes.

Of course, his mother noticed. She played it off like she did Frank’s father’s drinking, Brandy's recurring flu, and the bills piling up on the kitchen counter, smiling just a little too big and making snarky comments--“Like his daddy at that age. Tryin’ to rebel. Playin’ macho. Playin’ mob. It’ll pass.” All the while biting her nails down to nubs when no one was looking.

Frank was past caring then. He loved her, ‘course he loved her, but she didn’t understand. Couldn’t. _(Shouldn’t.)_

He started going to the gym that year, too, with Johnny and his friends. Started lifting. That year, his arms got strong.

***

He could have probably done it by the end of that year. It wasn’t till the next, though, that his father said anything about it.

“You’re gettin’ big, Frankie,” he said, over a cooling body one evening in March. “Come here. Hold me down. Try.” He laid back on the floor beside the body. “Come on. Do it.”

Frank hesitated, but only for a moment. He always obeyed when they were out. Always. Once he was atop his father, like he had been the body a moment before, he looked down. He’d never seen a living face from that angle before, and a bolt of fear ran through him.

His father grinned. “Now, try,” he said, gesturing to his own neck. “Try and keep me down. Come on.”

So Frank did. Failed, of course; his father had him on his back, pinned, within seconds. Had his own hands around _Frank’s_ throat. He didn’t press, not even a little, but for a second there, Frank couldn’t breathe.

His father laughed. “You been doin’ any _real_ training at that gym?” he asked, in a tone that begged no answer. “Wrestling? Boxing? Anything?” Frank shook his head. “Shit. Gonna have to start that. What the fuck good are muscles if all you can do is lift a goddamn barbell? Come on.”

He got up, then, and gestured for Frank to follow. The next afternoon, per his father’s instructions, Frank signed up for his school’s wrestling club. His deadbeat friends scoffed, of course, but fuck if he cared, really. Pretty soon, he’d know how to pin any of them.

That made him feel a little too good.

***

Takedowns came naturally to Frank; within a semester, he was a jewel in the crown of his school’s admittedly mediocre wrestling program, reaching above his own weight class, grappling with juniors, seniors, pinning them, winning, conquering. He never went for their throats, of course, but always, every time, it occurred to him that he could. Couldn’t _not_ occur to him, on top of them like that. Alive, sure, but not so different. Muscle memory. How many times…? Anyway, it hung there, in his mind, every time, and every time he shoved it down. Didn’t let it dull the buzz of victory for any longer than it had to. 

Two weeks before JV semifinals, when Frank’s mother and siblings were out, his father laid down on the living room floor and called Frank out from his room. “Try again,” he said. “Hold me down.”

He knew, by then, that he could. He’d taken down boys bigger than his father, stronger, from standing. Still...well. It was something, and he didn’t feel ready, somehow. “Come on, Frankie. I seen you do it. Come on.”

It took a few minutes of struggle--his father had done this probably hundreds of times, after all, and, while not the largest person Frank had ever fought, he had a raw, feral strength to him--but in the end, Frank found himself on top, hands around his father’s meaty throat...pushing down. Choking.

He stopped as soon as he realized, of course, but for a moment after that, neither of them moved.

That evening, Frank’s father told him he would be quitting wrestling.

“You know what you’re doin’ now,” he said. “‘S all it was for. Don’t need it no more. Alright?”

Frank nodded, and obeyed.

The coach was angry. Very. Face beet-red, he asked _why?_ , and on instinct, Frank squared up. Ready if he lunged. Always ready. Instead, the coach shrank back, slightly. _He sees it,_ Frank thought, for some goddamn reason. _Sees what I am._

Bullshit, he knows, now, but back then, it felt a lot like power. Felt better than smacking down some sixteen-year-old shit. Frank didn’t mind quitting, then. Told himself that over and over on the way home.

He never went back to the high school gym. That night, they had a job. That night, it was Frank’s turn.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More mild editing as of 2-5-16.

His father didn’t tell; he asked. “Think you’re ready to do one tonight? Actually do it?” Frank nodded. Smiled a little. (Not too much; not like he _wanted_ to.) His father smiled back, bigger. Clapped him on the back. Told him they’d leave at midnight, and not to sleep first. “Dulls the reflexes,” he said. “Better to just wait till after.”

He was ready. Knew he was. Was sure. It was the perfect job, too; he never knew if his father planned it that way or not, but the mark was a scrawny geezer, eighty at least, fast asleep when they arrived. ( _The sleep of the dead,_ Frank thought. Grinned. Tamped down the guilt that still niggled on reflex.)

The man’s apartment was a moldy box on the fifteenth floor of a decrepit building four blocks from Frank’s own house, one he passed every day on his walk to school without a second look. There was no elevator, and by the time they reached the man’s door, his father was panting for breath. Frank, though, felt a current running through him, electric, intimidating. He felt good. His father nodded to him questioningly at the door, the _you ready?_ written clearly on his face. Frank nodded. They entered.

The man, like most, did not stir. Frank approached silently, his father at his side. Grasped the neck and shackled the body with his thighs in one swift movement. Pushed. Hard. It was tough, tougher than Frank had expected from an old bastard like that. _Instinct,_ his father had told him, once, on the way to a job. _Gives you some kinda energy you can’t get any other way. You’re fightin’ that, more than the regular strength of a person._ Frank had no trouble holding fast, though; even instinct isn’t enough when you’re ninety pounds soaking wet.

No, what threw Frank were the eyes. They flew open near instantly. He should have expected that, had seen it enough times before, but.

It shook him. Really shook him. He could not look away.

As he pushed, the capillaries burst, red lines streaming through the yellowed whites of the eyes. The pupils dilated, bigger, bigger, before shrinking away to pinpricks at the end.

To Frank, it felt like hours, though when he was finished--when the body went totally limp below him, stopped bucking, stopped fighting its pathetic, eighty-year-old fight--he saw that only three minutes had passed since they’d entered the room. He had been absorbed totally by his efforts, by the feeling of the man’s fleeting pulse under his fingers, by the slight gurgling sounds from his throat...by his eyes. 

When it was over--when the body went still--Frank fell back on his heels. The bedsprings creaked below him, but otherwise, the room was dead silent. Eventually, Frank turned to face his father. He’d stayed well back the whole time, and didn’t move with Frank’s attention. Didn’t even say anything; waited for Frank to speak first.

“It’s done,” Frank said, two minutes later, according to the alarm clock he couldn’t stop checking out of the corner of his eye.

“Yup.” More silence, then, followed by a quiet “Yeah.”

Frank nodded. He felt...nothing. Fine. A little shaky, maybe--the room was moving, just a little, before his eyes--and a little winded, but not sad. Not worried. Not guilty. Nothing.

"Nothin' much to take, his father said, standing from his crouch and roaming the room, then the whole apartment. "Poor bastard. Hardly anything. Shit. Ah, well. Let's go." 

Back in the car, his father let out a feral laugh. “Good man!” he said, just a little too loud for a quiet car in the night. “Good man. You did it. Did perfect. Frankie. My Frankie.” He clapped Frank on the back. Frank tried to smile, he really did, but on the stairs back down--15 floors, 15 landings, 15 turns and turns and turns--the cold had begun to settle in. Cold, then weakness, then sick. By the final landing, he was barely on foot, mostly falling down the stairs, really. Wishing, on some level, that he _would_ fall. It wasn’t sadness, really; he told himself, anyway, that it wasn’t. It was...dread. Not of getting caught, no; years later, he’d realize it was dread about doing it again. Dread of seeing those eyes again. Dread about the inevitable.

Of course, he said none of this to his father. Eventually, he managed that goddamn smile. His father grinned back, cranked up the radio--oldies with a booming baseline--and left Frank to himself.

When they arrived in their own driveway, lights off, Frank’s father did not get out. He looked to Frank in a way that made it clear they’d talk after all. Frank let out a shaky breath and turned to face whatever was coming.

“Spooked ya, didn’t it?” Frank hesitated, but there was no derision in his father’s voice, so he nodded. 

“Good. That’s good. It should spook ya, first time. Means you didn’t have fun. If you _had_ had fun, shit, I wouldn’t’a known what to tell ya. You’re like me, Frank. You’re alright.”

Frank had no idea what to say to that; didn’t know, all the way, what his father was like. Didn’t know what was _alright._

His father continued, though, without waiting for an answer. “It doesn’t have to be so bad, though. There’s ways to make it easy. Things you gotta do.”

Frank looked up, then, and _wanted._ He wasn’t getting out, he knew; the dread had not been unwarranted. He was _in,_ and it wasn’t the spy-novel world he’d wished for himself. It was bloodshot eyes and cooling bodies and spiraling stairs and gut-deep dread. But there was a way to live in this place, and he would learn. He nodded.

“You gotta leave,” his father said. “In your head. I seen you readin’ those books--do what you do then. Go someplace else. Into a story. Anywhere. Don’t matter. You don’t need your brain to do what we do, and your body don’t care. Keep ‘em separate. That’s what I do. You hear me? ”

He wanted to nod, to say he got it, but he didn’t. Didn’t know if he could do that--just...leave. The possibility, though--the idea of a reprieve--was enough for the night. He hoped. He hoped, and that was almost enough.

Frank fell asleep that night thinking about where the hell to go.

***

The first few times, he couldn’t break away, not really. He pictured himself, first, in his bedroom, under the covers, Metallica blasting through headphones. No dice. Next, he willed himself into his girlfriend’s backseat, doing...well. All that did was fuck him up the next time he _was_ there; her eyes just didn’t look right, and he went home early. They broke up two weeks later, after a repeat non-performance. The time after that, he didn’t even try, going into it straight like the first time. He managed--of course he managed--but his father had to tell him he was shaking four times on the drive home.

As it happened, a mental bolthole revealed itself organically a month later, over the corpse of a middle-aged uptown woman in her pajamas. He went numb without trying, that time, and in his mind, he was nine again, on a beach in South Carolina with his mom and brothers. They’d driven down the summer after fourth grade, spent a week in some cousin’s timeshare. It was windy, a storm kicking up, but Frank wouldn’t leave the ocean’s edge, even as his brothers retreated and wrapped themselves in towels. The water numbed his toes, foam licking at his knees. He could hear nothing but the roar of the waves. He hadn’t thought about that moment in years, but as the last flickers of light left the mark’s eyes, Frank was blissfully engulfed.

He did not return, not fully, until he was back home. Oh, he gathered his things, removed his gloves after closing the mark’s door behind them, even chatted some with his father on the drive, but it wasn’t...him. He was mirrored, double, for the first time: his physical self bore down, pushed hard, harder, carried on, while everything else--the part of him that shook to see those eyes, that couldn’t cope, that more and more often saw his father as something of a monster, after all--got swallowed, over and over, by the waves.

When he got home, a switch was flicked, and he came back together. It didn’t hurt, though, not like the times before. His eyes cleared, and he saw a knowing look on his father’s face.

“‘S better, isn’t it? Don’t hurt so much?” His face was sad when he said it; Frank was sure this time, as he so rarely was with his father. The lines etched around his eyes were crisper than Frank was used to, harsher in the dim light of their narrow entranceway. Frank’s father looked _old._ Old, kind, tired, and relieved. That his son, his protege, his… _creation_ could hack it, after all.

Frank smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Not so bad. Thanks.”


	5. Chapter 5

His father waited through three more jobs--standing by, watching, driving, but not touching anymore, not at all--before introducing Frank to his poker buddies. Some of them were men Frank had seen before, even spoken to. Some were his school friends’ dads. Most were Frank’s father’s age, though some were younger, in their late twenties or early thirties, probably. Frank was the youngest, though, by at least a decade.

His father slapped him on the back as they entered one of the men’s living room, thick with unfiltered smoke and men’s voices, empty save for a single round table, covered in cards and chips and wallets. His father’s face, Frank noticed, was already ruddy, though he hadn’t drunk a thing. “This’s my boy,” he said. “Frank.”

The men, it seemed, had heard of him--he received a few more back-slaps as he and his father rounded the table to the two remaining empty seats. His father introduced the men, first names only: Gino, Willy, Carl, Momo, Jones, and on and on. He did his best to match them to faces, but missed some, and certainly wasn’t going to ask for repeats. Just nodded and got dealt in. (His father had taught him and his brothers to play, years before. He was good; not great, but far better than Johnny and Tony.)

He kept his eyes on his cards at first. He listened, though, closely, and snuck glances when he could. They talked work for awhile: Carl, he learned, ran a chop shop; Willy worked some fucking desk job he fucking hated, dammit; Momo didn’t do nothin’ anymore, but don’t you dare tell his wife, she don’t know yet, and he don’t know how to tell her. At that, it was on to wives: seemed they were all on their husbands about _something_ or other, some task or chore or bedroom something. Frank’s father, thank god, remained mostly silent, chuckling occasionally as he put down his cards, but not saying shit about Frank’s mother. _For my benefit?_ Frank wondered. Dismissed it. Kept his eyes down.

“Hey kid,” said one man--Gino, Frank thought, or maybe Jones. “Quieter than I expected. Don hit you or somethin’? I gotta call CPS on the bastard?” They all laughed at that. Frank smirked, shook his head, raised his gaze.

“Nah,” he said, “but I don’t got a wife on my ass, so. Nothin’ much to say.”

They all laughed at that. “Lucky bastard,” Momo said. “Shit, do I miss bein’ sixteen. Shit.”

Quiet after that, for awhile. Occasional bluff-calls, curses, chip shuffling, but no talk. Frank didn’t know whether to calm or to tense; he’d never been good with silence. He looked to his father, but the man’s poker face was flawless. No tells. No indication of trouble to come, or of peace.

Out of nowhere, Carl began spoke, voice low but powerful. “‘S he in yet, Don? Can we talk?”

Frank’s father grinned. Nodded. “Would I have brought him if he wasn’t? I look like an idiot? Kid’s practically a pro. Done, what...three jobs?”

He looked to Frank for confirmation. “Four,” Frank said. “On my own, I mean.”

“On your own?” Carl said incredulously. “Don, you sendin’ him in on his own? At fuckin’ sixteen?”

“I’m there, asshole,” Frank’s father said, laughing. “Hands-off, though. No more trainin’ wheels.”

“Shit,” Momo said. “At sixteen? Shit. Gonna have to make that call after all, Gino.” He laughed uproariously; some of the others chuckled, but Carl remained stone-faced, as did Frank’s father. Finally, Momo quieted.

“So what,” Carl said, “you ‘bout to retire, Don? You out?” 

Frank’s father snorted. “Nah,” he said. “Just preparin’. Like a...what’a they call it, a...internship. Got my intern, here, huh Frank? Career trainin’.

Frank’s eyes had been fixed on the middle distance, smirk in place but mind beginning to drift into the waves. His father’s hand on the back of his folding chair brought him back, though, and he laughed, said “yeah,” and let his eyes roam the faces before him. They nodded back, chuckled. Carl’s eyes remained on Frank’s father’s a few moments longer, then darted to Frank’s, probing, steely, sharp.

“So you’re a fuckin’ man, huh?” he said. “Big tough guy, sixteen?”

Frank didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He met the man’s gaze, though, never let it drop. Knew a challenge when he saw one, and knew what it meant to back down.

Carl laughed, eventually. “Got balls, I’ll give you that,” he said. “Balls and a body count. You’ll do. You payin’ him yet, Don? Or are interns just patsies till they go on their own?”

Frank’s father looked to Frank, then, eyes questioning. “Didn’t really think about it,” he said. “I feed ‘im, don’t I, put clothes on his back, a roof over his head, but shit, you could be makin’ money, couldn’t ya, at some supermarket or something? You’re doin’ work; guess I oughta give you somethin’. How’s eighty-twenty sound, to start?”

It sounds dumb as hell in retrospect, but up until that point, Frank had never even considered the money, beyond a general acknowledgement that it existed. Certainly never wondered it he was entitled to any. Never considered what they did--what _he_ did--a job, in that sense. 

“Good,” he said. “I mean, yeah. Hell yeah.”

His father stuck his hand out, then, the angle awkward from proximity. “Deal,” he said. “Next job. Twenty percent.”

Frank shook. The game went on.


	6. Chapter 6

By his seventeenth summer, Frank was the richest kid he knew. Didn’t have shit to spend the hit money on, after all; like his father’d said, he didn’t buy his own damn food, didn’t rent a house, didn’t have needs that weren’t at least somewhat met. He spent a bit here and there--dinner dates, nice shoes, movie tickets for Brandy when all her friends were going, Kit Kats for the younger ones--but most of it, he saved. He kept it, at first, in a box under his bed, but when that got fucking ridiculous--and when Brandy started pinching extra for her _own_ damn dates--he opened a savings account. (He asked his father, first, if that would get them caught; his father laughed, called him an idiot, and opened them both another beer.)

As far as Frank’s friends knew, he was as broke as they were. None were the types for lasting after-school work--too many piercings, too many drugs, too few consecutive days of shit-giving--so it surprised no one when Frank didn’t have one, either. So the money piled up--no taxes, lots of interest. When it hit the five-thousand dollar mark, Frank told his father he was going to college.

“The hell you wanna do that for?” his father said. “D’you even give a shit about school?”

Had Frank’s mother been around, she’d have smacked the back of her husband’s head and gestured to the dean’s list on the fridge, told him she’d raised a genius, surprise! Frank just shrugged. “I got the money. Need somethin’ to do. I like reading. What?”

“Nothin’, his father said. Grinned. “College boy. Do it! Make me proud.” He said it nonchalantly, like it was no skin off his back, and hell, it wouldn’t be, not really--Frank sure as hell couldn’t afford to leave town, after all, and how much more time could college take up than high school already did? For the first time, something else--something besides a bedroom in his parents’ house, a job at the auto plant with Dad and Johnny, and the occasional hit--seemed possible. Hell if he knew what he’d _study,_ but whatever. He fuckin’ hated cars.

Half of Frank’s friends didn’t bother sticking around till graduation, and those who did certainly didn’t apply to fucking college. By the end of his spring semester, he was more or less alone. That suited him fine, though; he’d never been too close with anyone, anyway. He had a plan. A goal. That was what counted.

His mother nagged him to walk at graduation, but they’d had a job the night before, and he told himself he didn’t care. “They’ll mail me the diploma, ma,” he said. “It don’t matter.”

His SAT scores were nothing phenomenal--they sure as shit wouldn’t get him into UPenn, and Penn State would have been a stretch--but they were plenty good for the local junior college. Frank enrolled the following fall, taking mostly literature courses.

“The hell are you gonna do with a lit degree, Frank?” his mother said, her voice teasing. “You gonna be a professor, patched elbows and a briefcase? Hah!” Her voice was kind, though, and deep down somewhere, Frank considered it. 

He quickly learned that his high school education had been shit. He was overwhelmed, at first, in classes that should have been simple, the 101s and 110s, the ones filled with old folks returning ‘just for fun.’ He adapted, though; he always adapted. Soon, the books began to make sense, and his essays started to actually say shit. It felt good. He advanced. Took on more courses as he could afford them. Learned.

He played it all off at home, but it pleased his mother, he could see that it did. She’d never known shit about what he and his dad did--thank fuckin’ god--but she’d worried anyway, all those years. “My boys,” she said. “Johnny movin’ up at the shop, and you! Hell, maybe now Tony’ll get his act together, huh? Start doin’ his homework? And Brandy, those boys can’t even pay for your dates--you better find yourself some good work, too, huh?”

Two weeks before Frank was set to begin his second year, his father’s car flipped over on the highway. Doctors said his spine snapped just above his waistline-- “thank god,” they said, “if it’d been a few inches higher he could have lost the use of his arms.” Small comfort, though: he was bedridden for four months, and after that, The Chair. Frank would swear he didn’t say a damn thing but “fuck” that whole first year, and all his father would say in disagreement is “I threw some ‘shit’s in there, too, and at least one ‘sonofabitch.”

Tony dropped out of high school that year, and Frank never returned to college. Johnny was living on his own by then, with a wife and a baby on the way; he gave what he could back to their mother, but not enough, not nearly enough, even with their father’s disability checks. So Frank’s father began teaching him and his younger brothers all about engines. It took a few months, but by the grace of god--and not a little pity--their father’s boss took them both on as apprentices, paying them not enough, but some.

And then there were the jobs. All Frank’s, then--they barely even discussed it. Frank never knew where his father got that first envelope after the crash, stuck in bed as he was, but he handed it to Frank without a word. Inside was a slip of paper with a first name, two addresses, and a number-- 2,000. “That’s the dollar amount,” he said. “Get it done, then pick up the cash at the second address.”

Frank nodded. Did it. He’d gone in alone before, but never without his father in the car, waiting. It felt wrong--wronger, whatever--but not any more so than any of the other shit, post-crash. He adapted. Did what needed doing.

After awhile, Carl cut out the middle man, and began handing the envelopes to Frank directly, at the weekly poker games they both started attending again once Frank’s father was out of the hospital. Frank’s father looked away, but not before Frank saw a flicker of something; jealousy? Nah. Probably not. Something, though. Whatever.

After the first solo job, when Frank tried to hand his father his usual cut, the older man knocked it from his hands, onto the hospital bedding before him. “Shit,” he said. “It ain’t mine. ‘S yours. Give it to your ma, though. How many of ‘em are there now, six? She needs it more than you. But shit, it ain’t _mine._ Idiot.” 

Frank’s mother noticed the cash deposits on the family bank statements, alongside the ones from the auto shop; she wasn’t stupid. Must’ve been seeing them for years, from Frank’s father’s own hits. After the third one, though, she cornered Frank in the kitchen.

“‘S this you, Frankie?” she said, pointing to the number on the page. “You in somethin’ you shouldn’t be?”

Frank shrugged; found it in himself to look offended. “‘S nothin’ bad, ma. What kinda guy you think I am? Don’t worry about it.”

She didn’t question it further. Nobody ever questioned it further.

Life went on.


	7. Chapter 7

It was all too simple, he’d realize, later. For all the emotional turmoil of the early years, logistically, the jobs were _easy_. In, dead, out, done. Ten minutes. Too easy. Of course that couldn’t last. 

He was on his way out of a mark’s eighteenth-floor apartment when a door opened behind him. He heard an elderly woman’s voice, an aborted “um” from someone uncertain in her role, her right to comment. Before he knew what he was doing--before he could fucking _think_ for a second--he was turning to face her. It was stupid--he won’t defend, won’t justify what he did--but he’d never been confronted on a job before. As soon as he did it, he knew how absolutely fucked he was. Someone had seen him, in fucking Chestnut Hill, where his rough face and killer’s gloves stood out like sore, bloody thumbs.

The eye contact was brief, over before it began, really, then he was running, down the back staircase and out the service entrance. He jumped in his car and gunned it.

Again, though, he looked back. Saw a light on in what must have been the woman’s room as he drove away. Tried to control the rising bile in his throat. Drove fast.

Not fast enough: red and blue lights behind him ten goddamn minutes later, before he could get on the freeway. He pulled over; no choice. The gloves, thank god, were in the glove box by then, but the good silverware from the man’s apartment...shit, that was in a box buckled into the passenger seat, waiting to be dumped. 

He’d never even considered the possibility of discovery. _Arrogant. Cocky. Stupid._

“Evening,” said the officer. “License and registration, please.”

Frank pulled out the documents, handed them to the cop. “My tail light out or somethin’?” he asked, somehow managing an even tone, an air of calm. 

“No sir,” said the officer. (Frank squinted at the badge: Jenkins.) “We received a call about an altercation at an apartment building nearby, woman said she saw a man she didn’t know leaving the scene. We’re checking everyone...not from the area, just to be safe. You know, places like this, everybody knows everybody, and to be honest, we don’t get a lot of Pontiacs around here, know what I mean.”

“Sure,” Frank said. “Sure. Yeah. Just out for a night drive, you know, but okay.”

“Don’t suppose it was you, then?” the cop said, shining his flashlight just a bit too close to Frank’s face. “You weren’t...visiting a friend around here, or…?”

“No sir,” Frank said. “Don’t know anyone around here; just a pretty spot to drive.”

“Alright,” the cop said, squinting at Frank’s face as though to detect deception. Frank had picked up his father’s poker face, though, and, apparently somewhat reassured by the brief and uneventful staredown, Jenkins took Frank’s license and registration back to his squad car.

As soon as he was out of sight, Frank opened the silverware box and began stuffing its contents into the glove box. _Stupid._ The cop must have heard the noise, and was back at Frank’s window in seconds, gun drawn. “Sir,” he said, “get your hands out of there, put ‘em up where I can see ‘em. No sudden movements. Thaaaat’s right, keep ‘em right there. Now, I’m gonna open your car door, and I want you to step out slowly, keep your hands up, that’s right. Come on.”

Frank was far away from his body by then, waves crashing over him, but even so, he could acknowledge the level of goddamn _shit_ he was in. Half the silverware was on the passenger-side seat, along with one glove, fallen from its place. The cop began to pat Frank down as soon as he was out of the car. Of course, there was no weapon-- _never use a weapon,_ Frank’s father had always told him. _Gloves, no gun, and they won’t have shit for evidence._ Asked, perfunctorily, to check the car, too, though Frank wasn’t dumb enough to think he had a choice.

“Silverware?” the cop said, looking Frank over from his crouch beside the passenger seat. “The hell you doin’ driving around with a box of forks?”

“They’re my ma’s,” he said. “Keep meanin’ to pawn ‘em--she don’t use ‘em anymore--but I’ve been busy.”

“And what were you tryin’ to do with ‘em when I walked away? You think I was gonna, what, steal ‘em?” 

Frank forced out what he hoped sounded like a chuckle. “No sir,” he said. “They were fallin’ out, so I was tryin’ to put ‘em in the glove box so they’d stay put.”

The cop did not appear satisfied, but after a few silent moments, he let out a breath of resignation. “You’re free to go, sir. I’m sorry for any inconvenience. In the future, though...keep your hands in view when you’re pulled over, alright? It’s dangerous out here, you know, and some cops aren’t so slow to draw, got itchy trigger fingers.”

“Sure,” Frank said. “Got it. Thanks.” _Thanks?_ Hell, he didn’t know what he was saying at that point. The adrenaline was fading, the shakes were setting in. He didn’t get like that much anymore, but when he did, _shit._

It took him a few minutes to get moving again after that, but finally, once the cop had pulled away, he began to drive, slowly but steadily, stopping fully at every goddamn sign.

Before going home, he pulled over on the Ben Franklin bridge, gathered all the silverware, and stood at the railing, polishing each piece on his sleeve before dropping it over the edge. Next went the gloves, a nice pair he’d bought himself a few years earlier, just like his father’s. _Fuck it,_ he thought. _I’ll get more._

All the lights were out when he arrived home, even the porch light; he fumbled in the dark, but managed not to wake anyone on his way to his room. He undressed methodically, folding his job clothes and stowing them, as usual, in the back of his closet, behind his other things. This time, though, he checked all of his pockets, once, twice, for extra silverware, as though it would even fit. Checked for his gloves, though he’d seen them fall into the water. Checked his arms for scratch-marks, though he felt nothing. Checked all that as though it could change the fact that someone had seen his _damn_ face, and

Shit.

_What’ll I tell dad?_ He snorted at the thought; a grown man, nineteen, then, scared of chair-bound daddy’s wrath? 

Still, he did not sleep.

***

He didn’t tell anyone what had happened the next morning; ate breakfast with the other as usual, laughed at their jokes, swatted Tony’s hand away from the bacon on his plate, talked after-work plans with his father. Hoped no one could see the shadows under his eyes.

The work day was normal. Boring. Boss chewed him out for slacking, dozing on lunch break, but nothing extreme. Johnny whipped him with an oil rag, asked him if he’d had a long, _hard_ night. “If he did,” Tony said, “It didn’t last. Heard him get back ‘round 1 AM.” Frank whipped him back, plastered on a smile, and got back to wiping away engine grease. Tried not to think.

When he arrived home, Frank found a squad car waiting for him in the driveway, the officer from the night before--Jenkins--standing beside it, talking to his parents.

“Frank Delfino?” he said. Frank nodded. “Mr. Delfino, you’re under arrest for the murder of Alvin Torres. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”

In that moment, he remembered, absurdly, that he’d forgotten to pick up the money. _1534 Beaumont Dr., Apt. B. 3,000._

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I understand, but I didn’t do no murder. Ma, I didn’t do this, alright? I’ll sort it out. I didn’t kill nobody. They got it wrong. Don’t worry. I’ll sort it...” He could see her crying as he was led away, kept trying to make her stop until he knew she could no longer hear him. Saw his father, too, stone-faced. Staring.


	8. Chapter 8

Frank had never been too into crime dramas--too close to home, maybe--but he knew the basics. Knew what it meant when they put you in a room alone, hard-backed chair, no armrests. Knew that the giant mirror wasn’t _just_ a mirror. Knew they weren’t so busy not to talk to him right away, that they were mostly just letting him stew. After about a half an hour, Jenkins came in, sat down across from him, and smirked. Frank didn’t let his own face change. 

“Knew there was somethin’ up with you, Frank,” Jenkin said. “Besides the obvious sketchy shit. I mean, obviously you were the one the neighbor woman called about--that ghetto car, the speeding, the stolen silverware--but Mr. Torres hadn’t answered the door when my colleagues knocked. Officially, there was no crime, so there wasn’t much I could do besides give you a scare. Thank god I did that, though; when we checked in on Mr. Torres this morning and found his corpse, I was _damn_ glad to have your license and registration information, and a picture ready to put in a lineup for poor Mrs. Harvey. She picked you out, Frank. Instantly. No hesitation. Anything you wanna say now? Show a little remorse? Might help your case with the judge.”

Frank held firm, didn’t waver. He’d learned a lot since his first kill, including how to stay calm without drifting. “I didn’t do it,” he said, “and I’d like a lawyer.”

Jenkins rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure the public defender’s office is workin’ on that. Should have someone down here some time in the next day or so. Nice kid straight outta law school, barely older than you, learned everything he knows from _Law and Order._ How’s that sound?”

“Better than this,” Frank said. “I’ll wait. Got any water?”

Of course, Jenkins kept going at him, but once Frank had announced his intention to shut the fuck up, he let himself retreat into his mind, and the wait didn’t feel like much. Never did get his water, but whatever.

There was no clock in the room, but it wasn’t more than a few hours before a woman walked in who didn’t look like a cop. She was probably thirty or thirty-five, black, appearance polished and professional, gaze steely. “Annalise Keating,” she said, “Mr. Delfino’s appointed counsel. My client won’t be saying anything else to you until we’ve had some time alone to talk. May we have the room?”

The cops hemmed and hawed some, but honestly, they weren’t losing much to the lawyer’s arrival, given Frank’s level of cooperation up to that point. Pretty soon, Frank and this Keating woman were alone.

She faced him directly for the first time, eyes boring into his, hands steepled on the table She did not hesitate or make nice before launching in. “How much have you already told these morons?”

 _Definitely not a newbie,_ Frank thought.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m not an idiot.”

She snorted. “Everyone’s an idiot, here. Nobody knows how to _shut up._ What did you _say?_ ” 

_“Nothing,”_ Frank said. “‘I’m innocent.’ ‘Get me a lawyer.’ ‘I’m thirsty.’ That’s it.”

She raised her eyebrows a bit. “I’m impressed,” she said. “Now, what do they have on you?”

“Can I see your...license, or whatever?”

Another snorted laugh from the woman, but she produced a laminated badge. He wouldn’t know from lawyerly credentials, but it looked legit. Good enough for him. Frank nodded.

“Now,” she said, “what are they going to find at that crime scene? I don’t care if you’re guilty; I just need to know what they’re going to say to the judge to make it _look_ like you are. Spare no detail.”

“Frank considered for a moment, but didn’t see many other options. “Some woman from that building… _claims_ she saw me walking out. Picked me out of a lineup, apparently.”

“What else? Fingerprints? Blood? Hair?”

“No,” Frank said. “None of that.”

“Cameras?”

“...No,” Frank said. Some things, Carl did check out ahead of time. “Not that I...I’m innocent, but--”

“What about the words ‘I don’t care’ are you not understanding, Mr. Delfino? What you did or didn’t do is not my concern, except as it pertains to what they can _prove._ No cameras?” Frank shook his head. “Good. Anything else?”

“No,” Frank said. “Nothin’.”

She smiled, then; the smile of a cat that’s cornered its prey. She picked her briefcase up from the floor beside her, stood, and went to the door, pressing a button on the wall.

“What’re you doin’?” Frank asked, sounding pitifully worried to his own ears. 

“Getting you out of here,” she said.

Jenkins arrived at the door. “Ready to plead out?” he asked. “D.A. says he’ll consider Man 2.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d like that,” Annalise said. “No, it’s time for you to charge my client or let him go.”

“Jenkins smirked, turning to Frank. “You got screwed, kid. I’ll tell you, though, you _can_ go against her advice. Plead out. Seriously, I been doin’ this for a _lot_ longer than either of you, and--”

“Shut the _hell_ up and get us in front of a judge,” Annalise said. She wasn’t _yelling,_ precisely, but whatever she _was_ doing made both Frank and Jenkins flinch. 

“Your funeral,” Jenkins said. “Consider it, though, Frank. You--”

_“Go.”_

He went.

Annalise returned to the table. “Last chance,” she said. _“Anything_ else I need to know, tell me now; otherwise you get me ad-libbing in front of the judge, and you don’t want that.”

“There’s nothing,” Frank said. “You really think you can get me out of here?”

“On bail? Definitely. _Off_ off? That depends on whether or not you lie to me.”

Frank nodded. “I won’t. Just...get me out of here.”

Annalise’s smile looked more genuine, then. “Tell me about your family, Frank.”

Fifteen minutes later, they stood before a judge. “Your honor,” the D.A. said, “The people request that the defendant be remanded without bail. He stands accused of first-degree murder, and, given the circumstances, has very little incentive to remain in the area till trial.”

Annalise appeared to be holding back a smirk. “Defense requests that Mr. Delfino be released on bail, your honor. He has strong ties to the community. He’s the main financial contributor to a large household. His disabled father and _four_ younger siblings rely upon his income, which would obviously disappear, were he to skip town. That said, he does not have the resources necessary to leave the country.”

“If bail is granted,” the D.A. says, “the people request that the defendant wear a monitoring device until trial.”

“That’s fine,” Annalise said.

The judge barely glanced at Frank; it was probably nine P.M. by then, and he looked ready for dinner, more than anything. “Works for me. Bail is set at two-hundred thousand dollars.” One gavel-bang later, the room began to empty. A guard approached Frank, took him by the arm, and began to lead him...somewhere. _Jail, probably,_ he realized. Tensed. 

Annalise flanked his other side, keeping pace. “Relax,” she said. “They’ll take you down to booking, get an ankle bracelet on you, then let you call home, get someone to bail you out.”

Frank hesitated. “Ma’am, we ain’t got two-hundred thousand bucks. No way.”

“Have you got a house?” she asked.

“Not one worth that much, and they can’t take our _house._ The hell am I--”

“You’ve only got to put down twenty thousand to get out. They’ll take the deed--that means they’ll technically own the house, but only until trial, and your family can stay. Do you think your mother, father, whoever will agree to that?”

Frank wasn’t sure, but he nodded.

Sure enough, when they reached the booking desk, Frank was fitted with an ankle bracelet before being ushered toward a wall-mounted phone.

His father answered on the second ring. “How much?” he asked.

The amount formed a lump in Frank’s throat, but he pressed on. “Two-hundred thousand,” he said, “but the lawyer says if you, uh, give them the deed for the house, until trial, they can--”

“I’ll be right there. Hold tight. You got a lawyer?”

“Yeah. She...seems legit.”

“She better be. See you soon.” With that, Frank’s father hung up.

“I am,” Annalise said. Frank flinched again; he’d thought she was waiting much further back, with the guards, by the wall. “‘Legit.’ Do I look like a P.D. to you?”

“I don’t really...I’ve never been here before.”

“Well, let me clear things up. Public defenders are swamped. They’re new, they’re barely trained, and most of them are still pissed that they didn’t get in with a _real_ firm right out of school. You do not want a public defender.”

“So what are you?”

“I’m my own firm. I’m not so new. I pick up public defense cases--a few a month--for the challenge. Mr. Delfino--”

“Frank.”

“Frank,” she amended, “For a man standing accused of murder, you’re exceptionally lucky. Don’t fuck it up.”


	9. Chapter 9

Annalise gave Frank her business card before he left with his father, telling him to call in the morning to arrange a meeting. “Think,” she said, “overnight, about anything that could help your defense.”

“Like what?” Frank asked, watching his father approach up the ramp outside the door.

“Start with an explanation for your little night drive,” she said. “We’ll go from there in the morning.”

The automatic doors whirred behind them, and Frank’s father entered. “This her?” he asked. Grinned. “Pretty.”

“Mr. Delfino,” Annalise said, but didn’t extend her hand. “I’m Annalise Keating, and I’ll be representing your son.”

“Well,” he said, “better bring your A-game.” He turned to Frank, then. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. He looked over his shoulder as they headed for the car, at the woman--Annalise--who would determine his fate. (Somehow, in his mind, it was her, not the judge, already.)

Somehow, that didn’t seem so bad.

Frank’s father refused his help getting into the car, and, before Frank could buckle his own seatbelt, they were tearing out of the parking lot. “Shit,” he said, eyes on the road, never glancing at his son. “Fucking shit.”

“‘M sorry,” Frank said. Didn’t know what else to say.

His father spit out a huff of breath. “You let someone see your face? Then you...what...just _left?”_

“What, you think I shoulda killed her, too? Just...offed her in the hallway?”

“Fuck, Frankie, you shoulda done somethin’. Now...shit. What are we gonna do?”

Frank didn’t say anything more until they pulled into their driveway, and then, it wasn’t an answer to his father’s question. “How’s ma?” he asked, instead.

Another huff. “How the hell d’you think?”

“She doesn’t know nothin’, though, does she?”

“Hell no. Thinks you’re innocent. Thinks it’s some kind of ‘awful misunderstanding.’ You ain’t gonna tell her different, either. You’re in deep shit, yeah, but don’t you dare drag her into it.”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it. Shit. ‘M not a kid. I don’t go runnin’ to mommy with my problems.”

His father’s face softened, then. “Nah,” he said. “Never did do that, did you?” He loosened his white knuckles on the wheel, ran a hand over his face, groaned. “Shit. Sorry. I just...how did this happen, Frankie?”

“I don’t...I didn’t...I couldn’t,” he said. Stopped there, because his father knew what he meant, he could see that he knew, and could see just a bit of disgust. 

“Shit,” he said. “Alright, let’s go in. Prepare yourself; she’s crying.”

So she was. She didn’t ask if he did it, just pulled him into a hug and dampened his shoulder until he patted her back and pulled gently away. “Frankie,” she said. “Frankie, we’re gonna get through this, alright?” She wasn’t telling, though, not really, so he nodded, said “yeah” and “yeah” and “yeah” until she quieted a little. 

Tony faced him, next. Didn’t go in for a hug--they’d never been like that, really--but clapped him on the shoulder, mustered a sad smile, and said “we’ll work it out,” as though he really meant it, as though there was _shit_ that he could do. The others kept their distance, more or less. Brandi hugged him tight, cried a little, then said she had to go, had to get away, couldn’t do it. She didn’t return that night. The younger ones didn’t say much of anything, just stared at him with big eyes until he retreated to his room, patting a few heads as he went but not making much eye contact. He listened through the wall as the house settled for the night. Tried not to make a sound.

He gave up on sleep around midnight; could hear his mother crying through the wall, deep, bellowing sobs. Around two AM, he heard her cry out. “They’re gonna _kill him,_ Don! They’re gonna _kill_ my _boy! Do_ something! We’ve gotta...oh my _god,_ oh my _god…”_

The next thing he knew, Tony’s alarm was blaring--6 A.M. Time for work. _I’ll take a sick day,_ Frank thought. Tried to bring himself to laugh.

He waited till the others were gone--Ma for groceries, he figured, Dad for some bar, Johnny for work, the kids for school--before emerging, shutting his door quietly behind him, and heading for the phone.

“Ms. Keating,” he said when she answered, “this is Frank. what time can you meet?”

***

She told him to meet her at at ten; he knocked on her office door at 9:45, in his father’s nicest shirt and the cleanest slacks he could find. The office was on the fourth floor of a slate-gray office building in the rough end of downtown, not trashy but certainly not nice. She didn’t say anything, didn’t smile, just stepped aside to let him pass and shut the door behind him.

The front room was what he’d have expected a lawyer’s office to be, had he ever thought of such things: cream-white walls, full bookshelves, a sleek mahogany desk flanked by swivel chairs, the odd plant. She led him past all that, though, to a room that looked more like a den than anything else: couches, rugs, lamps...and about two dozen cardboard boxes, torn open, torn apart. Papers everywhere. And a man: white, Annalise’s age, on one couch, sifting through the rubble.

“This is Sam,” she said, “my husband and, until I find someone with actual credentials, my assistant.” The man looked up, grinned, then went back to the task at hand, whatever the hell that was. “Sit,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable; I’ll be making you uncomfortable soon enough. Coffee?”

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah.” He sat down in an armchair across from Sam. “What… _is_ all this?” 

“This,” she said, from across the room, where a coffee pot was plugged into a wall outlet, “is your case. The makings of it, anyway. Precedent. Case law. Similar crimes in the area. And everything we could dig up on you and everyone you know.”

“On me? Wha...why? How?”

“Pick a question, Mr. Delfino.”

He sighed. “Why?”

“The defense will do their best to tear you apart,” she said. “We need to be ready. People don’t tend to reveal their own dirty laundry, even to their own attorneys, so I do what I can before they can start to lie.”

Frank swallowed, looked away, tried cover his own terror with a smirk. _Similar crimes,_ he thought. _In the area._ “And what’d you find?”

She sighed. “Not a hell of a lot; that either means you’re clean, or you’ve hidden your tracks well. Either way, nice work.”

“Thank you,” he said. Regretted saying it. Didn’t try to take it back, though; this woman, he’d gathered, did not appreciate stumbling.

She handed him a cup of coffee, sat down next to Sam, and hit Frank with the same piercing stare she’d used the day before, in the interrogation room. “Let’s get started,” she said. “Your neighborhood is full of mob associates. How many do you know personally?”

Frank balked a little. “Dunno,” he said. “I’m not involved in that shit.”

“But you know people who are.”

“If anyone I know’s a...what, a mobster, they ain’t told me about it.”

“Relatives?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

“Friends of friends?”

 _“No._ Look, I thought this was about me. I--”

“You’re deflecting. Who is the prosecution going to tie to you to help their case?”

Frank sighed. “I don’t know. You’re the lawyer.”

“Your father,” she said. “They’re going to look to him. Does he have any friends with criminal backgrounds, to your knowledge?”

 _Fuck._ “I don’t know. I’ve met his friends, but they just talk about their wives and their jobs and shit. Nothing...illegal.”

The gods above smiled on Frank that day; she moved on without asking for any goddamn names. “Has anyone in your family ever been arrested?”

“No,” Frank said.

“Any scandals? Anything in the news in the past, say, thirty years?”

“Not that I… _know_ of. Are they really gonna dig up old news stories?”

She snorted. “They’ll bring in your old report cards if they make you look anything like a criminal. Anything there, by the way? Truancy? Petty theft? Fights?”

 _Jesus._ “No.”

“A model citizen,” she said. “Who’d’ve thought?”

They went on like that for hours that day; occasionally she’d get absorbed in a file or a conversation with Sam about shit Frank couldn’t begin to understand, and he’d drift off. She didn’t stop him when he began looking through the boxes himself, except to say that he’d better not get coffee on anything, and to try to put things back where he found them when he was done. He didn’t get most of what he read, but he was pleased to note that none of the boxes in his immediate vicinity seemed to contain anything about decades of strangulation. _So far, so good._

They talked about the silverware, of course “Do you still have it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good. I’ll find someone to check the victim’s insurance information, see if it’s in any record of his possessions. Even if it is, though, if you don’t have it and the police didn’t take photos when they pulled you over, I doubt it’ll be worth much to them as evidence.” And that was that.

Their discussion of his presence in the neighborhood went...less well. “That’s it?” Annalise asked, when he told her exactly what he’d told the cop. “‘Out driving’? Gas is, what, three dollars a gallon now? On a rookie mechanic’s salary? Jesus. We’ll really have to sell it. Get _poetic.”_ She still didn’t press it, though; never pressed anything harder than he could stand.

Frank didn’t leave till Annalise and Sam did, around 6. Annalise hoisted a box into Frank’s arms as he stood, then picked up one of her own, gesturing for Sam to take two more. “Help me get these to my car, would you?” she said. “It’ll be a working weekend.”

Frank helped them out to an old sedan in the parking lot, then stood awkwardly with the couple, waiting for someone to make a move to leave. He realized he didn’t want to; didn’t want to head back to the house full of tears and awkward silence. “Thank you,” he said, finally. “Do you, uh, need me back here tomorrow?”

Annalise gave no indication that she noticed his eagerness. “Come in around noon,” she said. “We’ll talk witnesses.”


	10. Chapter 10

After that, Frank visited Annalise’s office just about every day. Sometimes, Annalise sent him away after an hour or two--a single grill session, a discussion of which family members might not make total asses of themselves on the stand as character witnesses, a lecture on expressing appropriate emotion on the stand during descriptions of the crime. Other times, it seemed she forgot he was there at all, until she looked up from whatever file had its grip on her and asked him another stray question. More and more often, as the weeks passed, she’d give him a box to sift through. “There’s a file labeled “State v. Abelson in there,” she’d say. “Find it, copy it, and leave a copy on my desk.”

“You paying him yet?” Sam asked, during one such session.

“Is he paying me yet?” she shot back.

Frank remembers the first time he went back to their apartment with them; Annalise said she needed dinner, but was far from done with her faux-prosecutorial questioning. In between attacks, he looked around the place: small, but in a decent part of town, with a balcony covered in potted flowers. In some ways, it was like the back room of the office--comfy couches, papers on every available surface, lit only by the sun till somebody realized they were squinting and turned on a lamp. On some level, though, Frank couldn’t help but feel it was _less_ lived-in, not more. _The life and times of a workaholic,_ he thought. _Figures._

One late afternoon, two weeks before trial, Annalise sprang up from her usual spot on the couch, a file in each hand. “I’ve got something,” she said. “Sam--Frank--somebody find me...there’s a box here somewhere with police homicide reports from the last five years. Get me that, then go back further. Sam, call the station, get me the last ten. Fifteen, if you can. Unsolved strangulation murders in the area, going back to 1990, at least. I’ve got to follow this. _Sam?”_

Frank didn’t move. Couldn’t. Couldn’t even mask his response; they’d all have known, had anybody bothered to look his way. Instead, the room became a buzz around him; Annalise dispatched Sam, then called the police department, told them to expect him, said goddammit, yes they _would_ give him the files, no it couldn’t wait till after the weekend, get somebody _on_ it, dammit. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone--slammed it, let it fall from the end table to the well-papered floor--that Frank was forced to compose himself. Her eyes on his snapped him back. “Frank,” she said. Smiled. “I’ve just made your case.”

***

She explained while Sam was out, though Frank had not asked; had not had to. “This file--July 15, 1999--refers to a similar crime _four years earlier._ 1995\. You were, what, fifteen then? If we can find a trail of similar--hell, _identical_ crimes--going back to your childhood, we can argue that it’s likely the same killer--namely, _not you._ The further back we can go, the better it will look to the jury. Criminal defense, Step 2: identify an alternate suspect. Normally, that would mean an individual, a name and a face and a motive, but,” she smiled, “ we’ll make do. This could be it, Frank.”

Frank nodded. Smiled back. Played along. Let the bile gather in his stomach. Waited for confirmation of his worst goddamn fear.

It was exactly as bad as Frank had thought. The files--the decades and decades of unclosed cases--were, in fact, mostly theirs. His and his father’s. Just his father’s, before a point, but who, he thought, was counting?

Well, Annalise was. Sam was. After awhile, Frank was, too. Within five hours, they’d picked out 153 likely matches; without looking too closely--without leaning over, examining faces and names and neckline bruising--Frank recognized thirty-one. He _saw_ his first, which popped up in his pile like a bad dream. Saw the wrinkled, battered mug that haunted probably too few of his dreams. _At least the morgue tech closed his eyes before the photo,_ he thought. Tried his hardest not to vomit.

He considered ducking out, but knowing Annalise, she’d notice, might think too much about things he couldn’t let her know. So he stayed. Watched three, four, five hours slip slowly by. Sorted through his own bloody laundry, page by page.

It didn’t end when the janitor showed up, either, because of-fucking-course it didn’t. “Come with us, Frank,” Annalise said, handing him a box like she had that first day. “We need extra eyes. This is it--your ticket out of this goddamn mess--but you’ll have to work for it.”

So he went. What in hell else was he supposed to do?

The walk to the car, the ride to the Keatings’, the weight of a box in his lap did ground Frank some; by the time they reached the Keatings’ building, he was thinking strategy. _Maybe,_ he thought, _just maybe, I can pull this off. They still got nothing on dad; all they’ve got is a pattern that can’t be pinned on me. Maybe, somehow, this is good._

It wasn’t much, but it kept him from bolting, from firing this miracle woman and holing up back home. Kept him standing in the elevator, head up, eyes forward, sweating bullets but not. Fucking. Leaving.

The sorting became almost hypnotic, once he started ignoring his own figurative fingerprints all over the files. _Ligature marks: discard. Post-mortem beating: discard. Found fucking_ naked: _immediate discard._ He almost got comfortable--as comfortable, anyway, as a murderer a hair’s breadth from discovery could be. The sun set; coffee was made, drunk, and made again. The clock ticked on and on and on. Frank discarded the jacket he’d worn into the office that morning, unable to muster any embarrassment over the wifebeater he wore underneath. 

It was probably eleven or midnight when it happened. Annalise was out picking up Chinese for the three of them--“I’d send someone less important,” she’d said, “but I need the air.”--and Frank caught Sam staring at his chest.

At his necklace. At the St. Christopher medal.

“What?” Frank said.

“I’ll be damned,” Sam said.

Frank did not respond. Sam grinned, just a little. Neither moved to return to work. They locked eyes. Didn’t let go.

Sam broke first, but it was a small victory. His first move was to haul back a box they’d discarded hours ago, full of cases from the early 90s. He dug for a few minutes, still fucking grinning, then pulled a file from the bottom of the box. 

“Joseph Leonard Price,” he said, reading from the label. “Age forty-seven. Died January 7, 1992. Manual strangulation.” He looked up at Frank, then. Frank, who still had not looked away. Frank, who was fighting every instinct to flee--mentally, physically, whatever. Frank, who said nothing.

“Seems all his stuff was insured,” Sam said. “They even took photos--you know, in case anything was taken, pawned, whatever. The photos are in here...somewhere...let me see...ah! There it is. Ho-ly shit.” He looked up at Frank. Grinned. “Hot damn.”

Frank still said nothing. What could he say?

“Don’t suppose you’ll let me see it?” Sam said. “Check the back?”

“I never take it off,” Frank said. Shrugged. It wasn’t a lie; he’d worn it since he was a child. _For protection. Jesus._

“Sure,” Sam said. “Of course. Probably won’t be necessary anyway, though, will it, with the DNA and all.”

“What?”

“Guy had blood and skin under his fingernails,” Sam said. “Tough bastard. Fought back. They never had anybody to test it against, but I’m sure they kept the samples.”

“It’s from a pawn shop,” Frank said. “My dad bought it for me. Said the saint would keep me safe, some shit like that.”

“Oh, sure,” Sam said, affecting an almost casual tone. “Makes sense. They’ll have to test the DNA against his, though, of course, just in case.”

“What are you doin’?” Frank said. He was surprised by the firmness, the steadiness of his own voice. 

“What do you mean?” Sam said. Laughed. “I’m solvin’ a crime! Bringing justice!”

“It’s got nothin’ to do with this,” Frank said. “Like you said, I was a kid.”

“ _You_ were,” Sam said, “but _he_ wasn’t.”

“What do you want?” Frank said. He hadn’t expected to say it, but once he had, he had a sickening feeling that he already knew the answer.

“Ah, nothing,” Sam said. “I like you; I don’t wanna mess up whatever it is you’ve got going for your family. Your dad’s disabled, isn’t he? Certainly not strangling anybody anymore. There’s no real _need_ to get him behind bars, no matter how much he deserves it. How about this: you’ll owe me. I’ll put this back where it came from, bottom of the stack, and when I need something, someday, I’ll dig up your number; how’s that sound?”

Frank heard Annalise’s keys in the lock. He nodded.


	11. Chapter 11

When Annalise entered, it was as though nothing had happened at all. Sam set down his pile of work, quietly placing the damning file at the bottom, and retrieved his box of kung pao from his wife with a “thanks” and a question about egg rolls. Frank sat, stunned, until Annalise handed him a box of his own.

She frowned. “Did you find something?” 

“Nah,” he said, disguising his shiver as a shake of his head. “Just tired. We should be good, though, right? I mean, how many murders do we need?” 

“As many as possible,” Annalise said. “I’d like to get through these boxes tonight; there’ll be more ready for us in the morning at the station. We want to _overwhelm_ the jury; that’s our best shot.” She must have seen weariness in his face, though; hers softened slightly. “Give us another hour,” she said. “Then head home.” 

_Home._ If there was anything worse than a late night of autopsy photos and blackmail, it was home, where the air hung perpetually heavy. His father had been skittish since that first night. “What are you doin’ over there all day every day, Frankie?” he’d say, over a tense dinner or coffee in the morning. “That lawyer woman got some kinda plan, or what? What’s happening? Talk to me.” Frank would shrug, tell him they had it under control. Until that afternoon, that had been a goddamn lie; Annalise had insisted they had a solid case, but as far as he could tell, they'd had shit. Now, though? It was...well. They had _something._ Good, bad...that all depended. 

Eventually, of course, his father would find out about Annalise’s brilliant defense strategy. He’d be in the courtroom for the trial, that was for damn sure; this was as much about him as it was about Frank, after all, though only one ass was directly on the line. He would _not_ like that evening’s developments, no matter how good they might be for Frank’s case. 

Frank wanted a drink. 

Instead, he resorted to a much older coping mechanism: he read. When he finished his stack of police reports--six on his father’s kills, five on ones with the same M.O., two duds--then moved on to a box to his right, full of information about the victim. Family. Friends. Work. Finances. 

It felt sick, on some level, to get to know the guy; he’d never consciously avoided information about their marks, but neither had he sought it out. They weren’t a newspaper family, so he’d never seen anything there, and nothing they’d done was quite sensational enough for T.V. The jobs had always ended, for Frank, when the sun rose the next morning. Pages were turned and never returned to. Hell, maybe he had worked not to see their traces, after all. Maybe he’d had to, because here was Alvin Torres, sixty-six, retired Marine-cum-businessman, father of two, and Frank wasn’t all too pleased to meet him. Alvin had, according to the file, been a widower and a bit of a recluse. No friends, except a few guys from the service who swore they didn’t know what had happened. He'd loved golf, though; went to a local course every week or two, spent hours there. 

Frank wasn’t stupid; he’d always known they were people, were real. His father had been right, though, that first night; sometimes it was better not to know. 

Nonetheless, he pressed on. No mention, he noticed, of the elusive Stephen from across town, who still owed Frank three thousand bucks. Didn’t much matter who he was, though, did it? Wouldn’t do much good to say hey, Annalise, maybe let’s pin it on the guy who hired the hit. The file mentioned no other suspects, either; it had been a damn short investigation, after all. Frank was it. 

“Straight to me,” he muttered, breaking the silence and dragging two pairs of eyes to his face, “There was no investigation; they brought me in, game over. How the _hell_ are you gonna get me out of this, Annalise?” 

Sam returned to his work straight away, grinning in a way Frank knew didn’t bode well for him. Annalise’s face hardened. “You haven’t been around here long,” she said, voice low, “so I’ll forgive you for not trusting me. Hell, I haven’t proven shit to you yet, have I? But Frank, I’ve been doing this since you were crashing your dirt bike in highway underpasses.” She stood, then, and approached him. Put a hand on his shoulder. “This will work. After a moment of hard eye contact, she relented, released his shoulder, and returned to her seat. “It’s late,” she said. “Go home. We need you back in the morning; the police department is sending over more boxes.” 

Frank nodded, began packing up the box before him. When he stood to leave, Sam looked up again, held his gaze, and smiled. “Night, Frank,” he said. “Sleep well.” 

Frank did not respond. 

***

They went on that way for three more days, sifting through box after box after box until finally, four days before trial, the boxes ran out. None of them could quite believe it when it happened. “Four hundred seventy-two,” Annalise said as she set down the last file; her voice toed the line between triumphant and horrified. “Almost five _hundred_ murders matching our killer’s M.O., all before Frank could reasonably be considered a suspect.” 

“Fuckin’ hell,” Frank said. It wasn’t entirely insincere; the number boggled his mind. The thought of his father perched atop _that many_ bodies...shit. “Jesus Christ.” 

Annalise laughed. “I shouldn’t be happy,” she said, “but fuck it, I am. Who wants a drink?” 

At the end of the evening, Annalise told Frank he didn’t need to return before trial. “We’ve worked you enough,” she said. “We’re all set. Don’t worry; I’ve got this. Just...remember everything I told you about courtroom demeanor, and get a decent suit, would you? Everyone hates a used car salesmen, and what you wore to my office that first day…” 

Frank nodded. He wasn’t sure, at that point, whether or not to be glad for the reprieve; on the one hand, he wouldn’t have to spend a minute more with fucking Sam Keating, who hadn’t even had the decency, since that night, to seem the least bit sinister. On the other hand...what else was there? Meals with his mother, who still cried in her room most nights? Lazy days with dear old dad? Eventually, he’d have to tell him what was coming. He knew that. The courtroom scene, otherwise....Frank shuddered. 

He drove home buzzed, almost wishing something would happen. 

He was surprised to find his father awake when he got home, at the table, nursing a beer. Clearly not his first, Frank noted: his face was flushed, shirt half unbuttoned, and he was grinning; a loopy, half-melancholy grin, but a grin nonetheless. “Frankie!” he said, wheeling himself back slightly from the table when he spotted his son. He gestured with his bottle to Frank’s usual spot, across from his own. “The prodigal son, returned. You just now gettin’ back from that lawyer’s house?” 

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Long day. Got a lot done, though.” 

“Yeah?” his father said. “She got somethin’ to get you off, yet?” 

“Yeah, Frank said. “We, uh, we got somethin’ worked out.” 

“Well I’ll be damned,” his father said. He lowered his voice. “You might just get away with it. I’ll be damned.” 

Frank was not ready, knew that he wasn’t, but knew, all the same, that it had to be then. “It’s uh...it’s not perfect, though,” he said. “Might stir up some shit.” 

His father looked unfazed. “Yeah?” he said. “More shit than you’re already in? How the hell do you figure?” 

“Not...not my shit,” Frank said. “Ours. Yours. She, uh...she dug up a lot of your old jobs. Shit from when I was in diapers. She figures she can convince the jury that the same guy did all of ‘em.” 

His father was silent, then. Frank had expected outrage, panic, _something;_ he hadn’t prepared for silence. His father’s face was unreadable. After what felt like ten minutes of nothing, Frank wondered if he should just go to bed; leave the old man to figure it out on his own. 

Just before he did, though, his father spoke, voice measured, quiet. “How much does she know?” he asked. 

A single knot of the dread in Frank’s chest unraveled, then; he exhaled, settled in his seat, and looked his father in the eyes. “Nothin’,” he said. “I mean, besides that it’s the same guy, or looks like it. She’s not lookin’, either; doesn’t care who did it, so long as it don’t look like me.” 

“Well,” his father said, wheeling himself back slightly from the table, “I wore gloves. Never left nothin’ behind. And unlike your sorry ass, _I_ never got seen. Let ‘em try and catch me.” With that, he wheeled himself fully away, toward the hallway and his room at the end. 

“Thanks,” Frank said, quietly, to his father’s retreating back. 

“Yeah, yeah,” the older man said, waving one hand dismissively without turning around. “Just don’t make it a regular thing.” 

Frank slept well that night, for the first time all month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty transitional chapter, I know, but its necessary, I think. Things will pick up a little more next chapter. I also apologize for posting a less-solid version of this last night, then taking it down this morning; I realized when I woke up that I really needed to make some edits. Hope it doesn't confuse anybody.


	12. Chapter 12

On the first day of trial, Frank sat squirming in the suit he’d bought with the last of his savings, struggling not to touch his slicked-back hair, muss it up, destroy the image Annalise had only just taught him to create. Annalise who, beside him, looked utterly cool, confident, save for the subtle lines of effort Frank could see in her face; she reminded him of his father on jobs. Nothing, he knew, was effortless. Not in situations like this. 

The judge entered, everyone stood, and the show began. The prosecution’s first witness was, predictably, the elderly woman from the hallway. When asked to identify the man she’d seen that night, she pointed a bony finger at Frank, dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, and recounted what she’d seen. “He looked so _cold,”_ she said. “Just...stared into me for a moment, then ran off. I knew, then, I think. Not for sure, but...I felt it. Something worse than a theft, you know? That’s why I called. I felt it.” 

The second witness was that bastard Jenkins. “He was cool as a cucumber while we talked, makin’ up stories,” Jenkins said, “laughing, joking, all calm till I turned away, then he started shovin’ shit into his glove box, tryin’ to hide it. I was frightened, honestly. I been a cop twenty-five years, but that man scared me.” 

Next, a medical examiner, who described the victim’s injuries with a visceral precision Annalise had warned Frank to expect. “They want the jury to feel it,” she’d said, and when Frank glanced at the jury box, he knew they’d succeeded. One juror made eye contact--a middle-aged Asian woman, plump and friendly-looking--then quickly averted her gaze, grimacing down at her lap. 

The medical examiner stared Frank down as he explained that the victim’s injuries could only have been inflicted by a large, fit man with a strong upper body. 

Annalise’s cross-examinations were strong--she asked the eyewitness about her failing eyesight, Jenkins about his justification for pulling Frank over, the medical examiner about whether anything about the body indicated who the killer was beyond a common body type. To Frank, though, the jurors just looked bored. He smiled faintly when Annalise returned to the defense table, nodded some sort of thanks, but it was half-hearted. He wanted to trust her, he really did, but what was trust in a place like that? 

No one said much on the drive home that day. Not a hell of a lot to say. 

The next day, though, it was Annalise’s turn, and Frank began to hope again. Her performance was flawless. He’d known, in broad strokes, what would occur, had helped Annalise select character witnesses, had been there while she wrote her opening and closing statements, but as it all came together, it was as though he were being convinced of his own innocence. She opened with their lynchpin: the other murders, dating back seventeen years and serving as perfect mirrors of Torres’s killing. Called those cases’ medical examiners, who confirmed the match. Called their detectives, who confirmed just how cold the cases were. 

Finally, Annalise called two characters witnesses: first, Tony--rational admiration, innocuous descriptions of his brother’s behavior--then Frank’s mother--pure emotionality, unconditional love. Frank tried not to listen too hard as they got torn apart during cross-examination; tried not to look back at his father, whose stony glare he could feel on his back. _Worth it,_ he thought. _Got to be._

The prosecutor’s closing statement demanded justice from the jury for the suffering of a veteran, the callous disregard for a man’s life. It was fiery and emotional. Annalise’s was calmer, in some ways, but no less adamant. “Today,” she said, pacing back and forth before the jury box, “Ms. Abelson asked you not to let a good man’s killer walk free. I ask the same. First, though, I ask that you consider the evidence before you--what’s there, and, more importantly, what’s not. There is no D.N.A. There is no physical evidence. There is one witness, who, from yards away, saw her neighbor’s assailant for a fraction of a second. There is the fear-mongering testimony of a skittish cop whose instinct, upon hearing the slightest noise from a stopped vehicle, was to cock his weapon. Has this circumstantial evidence convinced you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, of my client’s guilt? Has it made you comfortable enough in that conviction that you’ll put this young man behind bars for the rest of his life, or stick a needle in his arm, despite the eerie similarities between his alleged crime and hundreds of others, spanning _decades,_ which remain unsolved? I ask you to keep in mind that, when the first of these identical crimes was committed, my client was seven years old. People of the jury, Alvin Torres was brutally murdered, and I want his killer locked up. If you’ve been thoroughly convinced today that Frank Delfino is his killer, then, by all means, find him guilty, lock him up, kill him. If you’re not certain, though--if doubts remain in your minds--don’t let Mr. Torres’s killer walk free. Don’t let him win at the expense of an innocent man.”

That day, the car ride home was full of chatter. “She did such a good job, Frankie,” his mother said, over and over. “They can’t convict you. They just can’t. Right, Don? She had it all figured out. God, it was awful, what she said, about all those other murders, but this was the same guy, I know it was. Thank the lord, Frankie, you’ll get out of this. We’ll get through it. The jury _looked_ smart; it’ll be alright.” 

At that point, there was nothing to do but wait. 

*** 

They received the call three days later; the jury had reached a verdict. Frank and his family dressed, again, in their best clothes, and returned to the courthouse. “Sit with us,” his mother said, when they arrived at the courtroom door. “Please, I want to...I need to hold on to you, in case…” Frank looked to Annalise, over his mother’s shoulder; she shook her head gently. 

“I gotta be at the defense table, ma,” Frank said. “‘S how it works. I’ll...it’ll be alright. Come on, ma, don’t...come on…” She couldn’t stop crying, though, and he knew it was wrong to expect her to. Instead he just hugged her, a long, firm hug. 

His father reached out next: a hand to shake. No tears. “Good luck, son,” he said. “I’ll see you soon. Good luck.” 

Frank did not cry, either. He was far away by then. 

Annalise drew him back into reality, though, at the defense table. “Look alive, Frank,” she said. “This is our moment.” 

“Cocky,” Frank said. He smirked in spite of himself. 

“It’s not cocky if you’re right.” 

He tried to leave again, when the judge called the court to order; tried to drown himself, truly, in the waves, but found he couldn’t. He was hyper-aware, instead, as the forewoman--the Asian woman who’d looked so disgusted that first day--stepped to the front of the jury box, held up a slip of paper, and began to read. 

“On the count of first degree murder,” she said, “we the jury find the defendant, Frank Delfino, not guilty.” 

*** 

If Frank’s being honest, everything after that was a bit of a blur. He was hugged a lot, first by Annalise, then by his mother, then by what felt like more siblings than he had. Hell, he thinks his father might have put an arm around him, too, and squeezed. 

“Congratulations,” Annalise said; Frank hadn’t expected her to follow him toward the huddle of his family, but found he didn't mind. She looked startled when the others embraced her, too, maybe a little uncomfortable, but not unhappy, not really. 

“Thank you,” Frank said. He was surprised to hear his own voice break, like that of a child. Did not expect the wetness on his cheeks. 

“What’d I tell you, Frank? You trust me yet?” 

Frank nodded. Grinned. Hugged her again, because hell, it seemed to be in style. 

“Come for dinner,” Frank’s mother said, voice cutting clearly through the noise of the draining courtroom. “Please. Let me cook for you. You gave me back my son--” her own voice broke, then, and Frank had to hold her up. “Please.” 

Annalise looked about to protest, but when Frank caught her eye and raised his eyebrows, she let her excuses die in her throat. “I’d like that,” she said. “Thank you.” 

Frank could not recall ever having felt like he did in that moment; didn’t even know what to call it, really. Later, he’d settle on _free._

He barely even noticed the two young men standing against the back wall, staring daggers at him through the tears in their eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter contains references to child sexual abuse. Nothing is discussed in detail, but it is mentioned.

Frank had not thought any further ahead than the verdict; had not considered, for instance, that the auto shop might have hired a replacement by the time he was exculpated, or that Carl would never--ever--send another job his way. (He got this news through his father, who attended that week’s poker game without asking Frank along.) Free as he’d felt that first night, by the following morning, he mostly felt lost. 

He couldn’t stomach the free time. His work with the Keatings had given him a place to go each morning, somewhere to say he’d been if anyone bothered to ask over dinner. He wouldn’t say he didn’t wallow, but hell, he didn’t drown in it; he can’t imagine he’d have been so lucky without the case to suck up his days, preoccupy his thoughts. A weight was lifted with the verdict, sure, but another was dropped on his shoulders. When he left the house the morning after--because he _did_ have to leave, felt the need deep in his bones--he had absolutely nowhere to go. 

He walked for a long time that day. He could have taken his father’s car, but, he thought, there was no sense wasting gas on empty wandering, cash scarce as it was with his newfound unemployment. He entered a few businesses, asked about positions, requested applications, but nothing much came of it; turns out some employers actually read the papers, and though he’d been found not guilty, a lot of them weren’t so sure. Eventually, he stopped going in anywhere at all and just walked. 

He didn’t mean to head toward the Keatings’ office; he supposes it was force of habit. He didn’t go in or anything, of course, and as soon as he realized where he was, he ducked onto a side street and kept going, blew two fifty in a coffee shop as if to excuse himself. He headed back toward home soon after. 

Things carried on like that for a month or so; his mother started name-dropping pizza shops and corner stores that might be looking for part-timers and his father stopped saying much to him at all. He tried to tell himself it didn’t hurt, watching little Tony head off to work every morning, earn a check, support the others while he, the older brother, the former big-man breadwinner, sat around with his dick out, not knowing where the fuck to start looking. Even Brandi had a job by then, reception at some tax office downtown. He tried online, spending longer than strictly necessary in the public library, scrolling through listings for welders and construction workers and fucking intersection sign-wavers. (The former two rejected him outright; the latter called him in for an interview before explaining that they needed someone with a “sunny disposition.”) When little Veronica came home one day, announcing she’d scored a lifeguarding gig, Frank saw his father’s withering eyes on him, don’t think he didn’t. He felt it all, but didn’t know what the fuck to do about it. 

The call came late, around 11, when all the others were sleeping. He heard his mother grumbling from her room-- “who the _fuck_ calls this late? Don, shut them up...”--and picked the receiver up quickly. _Gotta be good for_ something, he thought. _Shit._

It was Annalise. “Frank?” she said. She sounded drunk. For Frank, it was like seeing a teacher outside school for the first time, dressed down and buying cheap smokes at a convenience store. He almost laughed. 

“Yeah,” he said, “It’s me.” 

“This is Annalise,” she said, as though she’d expected him to have forgotten her already. 

“Yeah,” he said, “I know. What’s goin’ on?” 

“I need something. Some help. Can you come over?” 

_Fuck._ It was Sam, he knew; had to be. This was him calling in his favor; for his wife, it seemed, or at least through her. 

“Sure,” he said, “I can do that, but...why me?” He certainly wasn’t going to mention his and Sam’s conversation--he couldn’t be _sure,_ after all, that this had anything to do with that--but he had to know. Before he headed out, he had to know what to bring. Whether he’d need gloves. 

She was slow to answer; Frank’s heart sank. When she did answer, though, he sensed no dishonesty. “I trust you,” she said. “You didn’t lie to me. Will you come?” 

“Yeah,” he said, “sure. The office, or…?” 

“Our place. Do you remember where it is?” 

“Yeah. Be there in a few.” 

He left right away. Heard his father’s grumbling, this time, something about “kid goin’ out for a fuck, can’t be bothered to find a damn job,” but he didn’t care. This, he thought, was _something._ Something to do; somewhere to be. Something. 

He did not bring his gloves. 

He found Annalise and Sam in the living room, surrounded, as always, by boxes and papers and files. This time, though, there was someone else there: a woman about his age, tiny, blonde and sobbing. She was chalk-pale, one of her eyes was bruised almost shut, and she looked fucking terrified. 

“This,” Annalise said, “is Bonnie. My new client. Bonnie, this is Frank, my most recent success story.” 

Frank reached out a hand to shake, and, after a moment of hesitation, the woman--Bonnie--took it, shook. Her hand--hell, her whole arm--was shaking, but her grip was firm. 

“You can trust him,” Annalise said. “I do. Can I tell him what happened, or would you rather…?” 

“You can tell him,” Bonnie said, sitting down on the couch, legs pressed tightly together, hands clenched in her lap. Curled in on herself, Frank thought. Shrinking. Hiding. She seemed much younger like that. He wondered what she did--or didn’t--do. 

“Bonnie here just shot her father,” Annalise said; her tone would have sounded off-hand, had it not been for the slur of alcohol and an undercurrent of long-suffering cynicism. “He deserved it. We’re going to keep her out of prison.” 

Frank did not let his shock show; he nodded, first at Annalise, then at Bonnie, who was shaking visibly, now. “How?” he asked. “What do you need me to do?” 

Annalise handed him a slip of paper; an address. “This,” she said, “is where it happened. Their home. His body is still there; the police have not yet been called. Before they are--before Bonnie here calms down enough after her horrific ordeal to make that call--we’re going to make it look like there was a struggle. Do you think you can manage that?” 

Frank balked a little. “You want me to...what, break in? Break things? Move the...you don’t want me to move the body, do you? How do I…?” 

Annalise smiled; Frank would realize, later, that that was the moment she knew he would actually do it. “When Bonnie called me, I told her to take photos of the scene. Here,” she gestured for him to sit beside her. “He was standing there, beside the bed, when it happened. She shot him from across the room...there. It shouldn’t take much to convince the police that they fought--Bonnie’s already injured--but evidence of a direct threat will bolster our case.” She pointed to an expensive-looking metal vase sitting on the bedside table. “Put that in his hand,” she said. “Loosely. As though he’d been holding it while approaching her.” 

“And...why are we doing this?” Frank asked. _Why did_ she _do this?_

Annalise glanced at Bonnie before facing him. “Bonnie was abused,” she said. “For years. All throughout her childhood. Sexually.” Frank winced. “The abuse stopped when... some time ago. But...these things don’t let a person go. They don’t.” Frank nodded, slowly. Annalise must have seen more questions on his face; she continued. “We have sufficient evidence of the abuse to get Murder 1 off the table already, but I don’t want her facing prison time at all. It needs to look like self-defense. Can you do this, Frank?” 

Frank nodded. But… “They have my fingerprints on file,” he said. “I need...do you have any gloves?” 

Annalise nodded, stood, and headed for the kitchen, returning moments later with a box of disposable latex gloves. “Will these do?” she asked. 

Frank thought quickly before answering. Decided on a shrug. “Seem fine,” he said. “Why wouldn’t they?” 

*** 

It felt much like his other jobs: a lock picked, a bedroom entered, a dead man left behind. This time, though, he did not have to kill. The blood was jarring--so much of it, everywhere, splattering the walls, the fucking _ceiling_ \--but nothing he couldn’t handle. It took longer than his jobs usually did--he spent fifteen minutes flexing and relaxing the fingers around the vase, adjusting its positioning on the floor, imagining the angle at which he’d have held it, had he been threatening the small, scared woman he’d met earlier in the evening--but not by much, and he was somehow not scared to be there, even after everything. The house was large and set back from the street; no nosy neighbors to interrupt. Somehow, too, it felt...worth it, in a way his kills never had. This man was real to him, but for once, that only made it easier. 

He returned to Annalise’s, triumphant. She’d sent him with a camera of her own, asked him to take photos for her to check, and after looking them over, she smiled broadly. “Perfect,” she said. “Now, we’ve got to hurry--Bonnie, do you think you’re ready to go back?” 

Bonnie did not look ready, not at all, but she nodded. “Then I’ll call the police and say...what? That I was standing in his room with a gun for...fun, he came at me, and I shot him?” 

“We’ll rehearse that in the car,” Annalise said, standing and heading for the door. “The longer we wait, the more suspicious it’ll seem. Let’s go. Come on. Frank, you’re driving.”

The story was crafted finely, minutely: Bonnie had been struggling to come to terms with her father’s abuse for years, and entered his room to confront him about it. She planned to come forward about the abuse the next morning, but wanted to give her father the chance to turn himself in instead. She brought the gun for protection, in case he got violent. She was standing by the bed when awoke, and he stood and punched her, causing her to retreat across the room. When she did, he grabbed the vase and approached her, so she pulled the gun from her waistband and fired three times into his chest and abdomen. She then panicked, dropped the gun, and ran to her room, where she remained for several hours, unable to bring herself to call for help. Finally, she worked up the courage to make the call. 

“What...if you don’t mind my asking, what actually happened?” Frank asked, turning to Bonnie, who was sitting in the back seat, shrunk into a corner again. 

“I told him to get up,” she said, “waited ‘till he did, then shot him.” Frank nodded. Bonnie almost smiled. He liked her, he decided. 

After they dropped her off, Frank turned to Annalise. “How’d she get that bruise?” he asked.” 

“I punched her,” she said, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. 

When they arrived back at her apartment, Frank moved to head back to his car, but Annalise stopped him. “Frank,” she said, “I’m short-staffed. Sam’s been offered a full-time teaching position. I can’t work alone; there’s too much to do.” 

“...Okay,” Frank said. He felt like he knew where this was going, but couldn’t quite believe it. 

“I’m offering you a job,” she said. “Full time. $20,000 a year to start, but when I get my practice going...” 

It took a few moments for it to register, but when it did, Frank had to fight to refrain from hugging her. He settled for extending a hand, which she took and shook, firm and unwavering. “Thank you,” he said. “Again.” 

“9 AM tomorrow,” she said. “The office.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited a few hours after publishing--just a few minor edits to account for my own misunderstanding of the canon timeline. Mea culpa.

Frank waited weeks for the other shoe to drop, for Annalise to send him out again, this time with a knife or a gun along with the gloves. Expected it; had to. Why the fuck else would she want him, a dropout killer whose legalese was no better than his Urdu? What good was he? No, he was resigned to his true job description; didn’t even really mind the idea. A job was a job, and hell, he’d rather it be for her than for Carl. He was ready. Sort of. 

But the call never came. He showed up every morning at Annalise’s office, fetched her files, fielded calls, picked up boxes from the police station just as soon as she got him cleared to do so. He didn’t have a desk or a contract or a dental plan, but as far as he could tell, his job was above-board. He was...Annalise’s secretary. 

That was fine by him. 

So slowly, he relaxed. His first paycheck bought him a couple more decent suits; pretty soon, he looked the part. When his mother caught him leaving one morning, a few months before he got his own place, she looked like she had when he got into college: shocked, but trying to hide it; proud, but not entirely sure it was real. “Hell, Frankie,” she said. “God bless that woman.” 

Oh, occasionally they’d cross lines; Frank was no expert, but he was fairly certain intimidating hospital personnel into releasing patient records, for instance, was somewhere on the illegality spectrum. Still, as far as he could tell, it was all for the good. Nobody got killed. Hell, nobody got _hurt,_ at least not physically. If Frank went to the gym, it was for his own benefit; that was more than he’d been able to say since fucking high school. 

As time went on, Frank’s responsibilities increased. Annalise got him a laptop about six months in. “Find me everything you can about Erickson,” she said. “The prosecution’s going to paint him as a saint; we need to show them something else.” As it happened, Frank was very good at digging. He didn’t know much about technology, at least not going in, but he was persistent, single-minded, and in the end--after however many pots of coffee, however many hours--he found what Annalise needed. 

Most times, he was not thanked. To Annalise, all-nighters were the norm, excellence the expectation. When Frank saved the day--and he did, many times over, for countless clients--she’d nod, smile, and make off with his spoils, polish them up till they shone for the jury. He didn’t mind, though; couldn’t bring himself to. Credit was not something he craved, never had been. Seeing the results was enough: he’d never seen anything he’d done turn out so damn well before. It didn’t take a genius, either, to read Annalise; deep down, she knew what he was worth, and appreciated it. 

Three years after Annalise hired Frank, Bonnie--the small, scared woman with secret nerves of steel--graduated law school; it was taken as a foregone conclusion, in Annalise’s mind, that she, too, would join them. They moved, that year, to a larger space. One with three desks. 

It was real. Somehow, it was real. 

Tasks sorted themselves organically: Bonnie handled PR and most client interactions; Frank did the digging, as well as anything that smelled a little funny, legally; and Annalise was herself, the great legal mind, the courtroom presence. It wasn’t always easy-- _Annalise_ wasn’t easy--but it worked. Frank was right, that first night, about Bonnie: she was strong and bright, hopelessly devoted to Annalise, but a force in her own right, when necessary. He liked her, and as soon as she realized he wasn’t going to try anything, she came to like him, too. 

Five years later--eight years into Frank’s employment--Annalise was offered a position at Middleton. For all the perks offered, she did not take it right away. Her practice-- _their_ practice--had grown steadily; her name had spread, gained traction. She was the miracle worker of Philadelphia, and she certainly wasn’t ready to leave it all behind to teach a bunch of snotty law students basic legal Latin. The administration wanted her, though, badly, and were willing to fight for her: they offered up a house and office on campus, a small course load, and enough money to allow her to pick and choose her cases. She couldn’t refuse. 

“Come with me,” she said, and, of course, they did. 

Annalise learned, quickly, the true value of law students. “They’ll work for free,” she said to Frank one night, over her fourth glass of vodka. “They’ll file, they’ll research...I can take on twice as many cases. Even with just a few of them...I can teach them, it’ll be good for everyone involved. Frank?” 

He’d frozen at the words “for free.” His fingers had tensed around his own tumbler of scotch, his mind had blanked. _Game over,_ he thought. Braced himself. Got ready. 

“Oh Jesus Christ, Frank,” she said, finally. “I’m not firing you. Jesus. You think I trust a bunch of first-year gunners to do your job?” Bonnie rolled her eyes from the couch, but Frank could see her relax, too, at Annalise’s biting reassurance. 

Annalise chose her first batch of four a semester later, during the first week of classes. Frank was a busy man that week, digging deep into the pasts of her top 10 choices, weeding out the obvious flakes and assholes, flagging the maybes, and covertly shuffling his favorite girls to the top of the stack. Once he’d presented his findings to Annalise, it didn’t take her long to decide. She didn’t heed all of Frank’s advice--she let in one asshole, for sure, and a borderline flake--but his top choice, a clever blonde named Olivia, made the cut. Bonnie rolled her eyes, but said nothing; Frank could tell she had a soft spot another of the chosen, a scholarship girl with a thick abuse file and a voice with an edge. 

Frank didn’t _always_ sleep with his picks; of course he didn’t. You can only tell so much about a person from classroom demeanor and an internet background check, and anyway, quite a few said no. It did happen, though, more often than he was necessarily proud of. What can he say? Close proximity, shared struggles, late nights. Shit happens. He was charming, too, by then; the job, the environment had refined him, polished his edges. Nothing ever lasted, though; he wasn’t a keeper, he knew that, and most times, he was fine with it. 

Annalise quickly learned that the best way to pick a good batch--beyond the obvious red-flag eliminations--was through a trial run. Literally. She’d gather the top ten or twenty and work them, prod out of them as many answers as she could, use them to find who was useful. It was a madhouse, usually, but damned if it wasn’t entertaining. Made Frank’s job easier, too; his recommendations grew sharper, the quality of his picks went up. The girls he chose got smarter. (This one’s a genius B-cup,” Bonnie said, one year. “Our little boy’s growing up!”) Unconventional? Sure. But it fucking worked. Their win-rate went through the roof. 

Just about every year, he heard the kiddies talking about him, asking each other for his credentials, as though any of them would fucking know. They never asked Annalise, of course, or Bonnie, or _him_ \--he was pretty sure he scared them--but discretion wasn’t something they came in with. He knew he stuck out. As the years went by, though--as he grew surer and surer that no, Annalise did not plan on firing him in favor of a particularly successful intern--he came to find it hilarious. Their guesses got close, sometimes-- “hired gun” came up more often than he’d have expected from a bunch of kids who supposedly respected Annalise--but there was no harm in it, really. Where some of them fell from the sky by second quarter, he remained, steady, working. By the end of their time at the firm, most of them respected him, too. 

Sort of. 

It was almost August when it happened. Annalise had gotten Frank a tentative roster for the coming semester, and he was doing a brute-force search of the names, hoping to make the most obvious cuts before the first day, save himself some trouble later. It was around 10 PM; Bonnie had gone home already, and Annalise had trial early the next morning, so she’d gone upstairs to bed. Frank was alone in the living room, Irish coffee in hand--best of both worlds, a frequent favorite in their office. When Sam came in, Frank wasn’t too alarmed; neither had ever mentioned their conversation since the night it happened. The debt had gone unpaid, and part of Frank thought Sam had put it out of his mind entirely. They weren’t friends--never had been--but for his own sake and for Annalise’s, Frank had forced himself to pretend the air between them was clear. 

That night, though...it felt like the night he’d been found out. Different room, different context, but the mood was there, a teasing, wheedling secrecy in Sam’s eyes. “Frank,” he said, sitting down on the couch across from what had come to be Frank’s armchair. 

“Sam,” Frank said. He barely glanced up from his laptop, keeping his gaze cool, unassuming. He was good, but knew that Sam saw through him. _Shit._

“I need something, Frank,” 

_Shit._ “Yeah? What’s that?” 

“A favor. A potential favor, really. An agreement.” 

_Shit._ “What’s the favor?” 

_“Potential._ Probably nothing, really. Let’s go talk in my office, alright? It’s quieter there.” The living room was dead silent; Frank had no illusions about Sam’s reasons for relocating. Nonetheless, he stood and followed his boss’s husband into his wood-paneled office two rooms over, sat across from the man’s imposing desk, and crossed his legs casually. Kept his face flippant, untroubled. Hid everything. Did it well. 

“You haven’t forgotten, have you Frank?” It wasn’t really a question; Sam knew. There was no forgetting something like that. Frank nodded. “And I don’t suppose your position’s changed? You and the old man are on good terms, still, aren’t you?” Frank nodded again; knew a lie, a bluff, would accomplish nothing. 

“You’re loyal, Frank,” Sam went on. “To Annalise, to this firm...to your family. I respect that. You’re a good man. I hope you can keep this between us.” 

Frank did not bother to nod, just kept his eyes locked on Sam’s, almost a challenge. 

“There’s a girl,” Sam said, standing, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from a small bar in the corner. He gestured toward it, silently offering Frank a glass; Frank shook his head. “A student of mine, from last semester. She and I...it was silly. Just a fling. It lasted a few months; I ended things, but she's being...persistent. Won't stop calling, texting. I love Annalise, I really do. You know that. That’s why I’m asking you this. I just...want to make sure that this doesn’t come back to haunt either of us, me or Annalise. It probably won’t--she’s a quiet girl, upset, not angry--but...I have to be sure. You understand?” 

Frank nodded. Slowly. Half-heartedly. 

“As I said, nothing’s likely to happen. But if it does--if it comes to that--I need to know you’ll be there for me. Available. If I call...can you do what needs doing?” 

Frank did not hesitate before nodding again. Couldn’t. Had had time, during Sam’s little speech, to consider his options: few, limited, all bad. Had thought of his father, his mother, the kids, the gas and food bills he still paid. 

Sam smiled, a smile that looked genuine, innocent. _A snake,_ Frank thought, not for the first time. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “I’ll, uh, let you know. Don’t worry, though, really; she shouldn’t be any trouble.” 

They shook hands--Sam initiated, didn’t leave much choice on Frank’s part--and parted ways, Sam heading up to bed, Frank returning to his chair, his work. He stayed long into the night, though a part of him begged to go home, to drink himself to sleep. The work soothed him, absorbed him, allowed him to escape without a hangover the next day. It was what he needed. 

That night, through the blue light of a computer screen, he met Laurel Castillo.


	15. Chapter 15

She was beautiful; of course he noticed that first. Sharp edges and bright eyes, dark hair a shock against pale skin. She smiled in the photo they had on file at Brown, but it was guarded, teeth barely peeking through lips. It did not reach her eyes. _Scared,_ Frank thought, at first, but no, that wasn’t it. On edge, more like. Vigilant. Who knew for what. Against what. 

She wasn’t his usual style; his girls, most times, were open-faced, hid little. (Terrible qualities in a lawyer, he knew, but they always got in, somehow, and some of them learned.) This one, though, had secrets. He’d learn their outlines, one by one, in a later search, through a finer-toothed comb, but he knew, just looking at her, that they were there. 

Brown University, class of 2013. Magna Cum Laude. Pre-law major, but courses all over the map. She was from Florida, but from what he could tell, she’d barely been back since she turned 18. Facebook locked up tight; no blogs under her real name. Normally, he’d have stopped there; normally, he’d have waited for Annalise to make her initial cuts before going deeper, bending rules, hiring hackers. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t stop there that night, why he kept digging, following labyrinthine Internet channels to their ends for information. Some combination of panic and fascination, he figured, but hell if he knew, really. 

Her father, he found, was the head of an import-export business out of Fort Lauderdale, a self-made man from Mexico with estates all over the east coast. New money, already dirty. He was careful, but Frank knew where to look. A few hours in, he knew more than he’d have liked to about the Castillo empire, and Laurel’s face in that fake-ass photo made a hell of a lot more sense. 

When he called it quits for the night--morning, whatever--he knew she’d make the cut. His, Annalise’s. Not for her face, either. He wouldn’t have been able to tell you why, but he saw something there, something sharp and ruthless and tailor-made for their firm, their work. He didn’t look any further that night, didn’t make it past her name on the list, but it didn’t matter. There was time. 

He managed, somehow, to sleep a little. Dreamed of piercing eyes and bruised throats and pupils blown wide. Woke sweating, choking, before his alarm. Shoved it down. Put it away. Went to work. 

*** 

The call came a week later, o’dark thirty. He was at home, waiting for sleep, thoughts nowhere in particular. He’d done well, that week, to ignore it, to wait without wondering. He hadn’t shown a thing. Hadn’t bothered to hope it wouldn’t happen, no; Sam would not have taken the risk of asking, of mentioning the debt, without a damn good reason. It was coming, but he had locked out the thought. He checked the caller ID--a strange number, payphone, probably--and answered coolly. 

“It’s me,” Sam said. “I need you to do the thing we talked about. You owe me.” He named a location, then, and hung up the phone before Frank could say anything. There was nothing to say, though. It was as good as done, already. 

His old clothes still fit; gloves, too. He put them on robotically, gathered his things in an old black backpack and headed out. Cool night for August; pitch-dark. Perfect. He wondered, idly, if Sam had planned it that way, or if the moment had snuck up on him, too, and all the rest was fate. 

He found her on the rooftop, just where Sam had left her. She was more or less what he’d known to expect: young, small, crying. He’d never really considered before how many of his old marks had been...well...old. Had never bothered to wonder why people even bothered to _have_ old people killed. Had sort of taken it for granted, he guessed, until he saw the girl on the roof. Young. Small. Crying. 

_Inhale, ten seconds; exhale, ten; inhale, five; exhale, five; inhale, two; exhale, two. Is the water rushing yet? Can you hear it? Waves, tides, grinding sand and salt and whipping wind. Voices, far away, calling. Rain. Crack of thunder. Far away, far away. Cold. Cold. Numb._

The muscle memory, he found, had not died. He approached her on autopilot, movements fluid, graceful. Grabbed her up, held her down, locked his legs around her. Pushed. The air left her slowly, though, in harsh, choking gasps. In this, he saw his lack of practice: the pressure was wrong, his grip faulty. He heard his father in his ear, then, hissing, warning: _You do it like that, it’ll take forever, and it’ll hurt._ Adjusted his grip and bound down harder. 

Her eyes were blue. 

When it was over--for it did end, eventually, after who knew how long--Frank’s mind emerged...then faltered. This was not a bedroom. There was no door to close behind this body. No nosy neighbors watching, no, but nowhere to _hide._ He had no script for this, and there she was, laid out bruised and broken, and he could hear voices on the street below, young women’s voices, chattering, laughing. There he was with this young, small body, no longer crying, and he could not leave her like that. Couldn’t move without a plan. Couldn’t run. 

What he did, of course, was no kinder. Her body would rot slow in that tank, bloat and green and float to the top where eventually, someone would find her. For the moment, though, it was what he had to give. A grave. A burial at sea. He almost laughed. Almost cried. The callus had worn down beneath his slicked-back hair and three-piece suits. It had been too long. 

He removed the gloves on the fire escape, replaced the coat he’d shucked for the job, civilianized sufficiently to make the walk home unnoticed. He did not run, did not stop, did not waver. 

Barely breathed. 

At home, he threw the clothes--unsoiled, not even wet--into a garbage bag. Gloves, too. Vowed to burn them in the morning. Got into bed unclothed. Pulled the blankets over himself, then stared up at the ceiling, blank. Forced it all--the body, the rooftop, those blue, blue eyes--into a box gone long unused. Shoved them down, closed the lid. Locked it. Let it go. 

Slept.


	16. Chapter 16

Frank had forgotten how it felt to be two people. The sensation was stronger than it had been, back then. There’d been so little _to_ him as a kid, after all; more secret than identity. Now, though? Now he had eight years of a life under his belt, a semi-professional image, fuckin’ _business cards,_ for Christ’s sake. He was a person, full stop, with no room in him for a killer. Two people, then; two sides of a fucked up coin. 

It sharpened him, in a way; things got brighter, clearer, harsher after, sounds got louder, time sped up. Adrenaline, he figured. Whatever it was...part of him had missed it. Sick, sick, but when he returned to the office after the weekend, box shut tight, he barely needed coffee. 

He’d be okay. Knew it, then. It was over. The debt was paid, and it didn’t hurt. 

Sam nodded as they passed in the doorway, met his eyes, didn’t blink. Frank nodded back, put his head down, and walked on. Feelin’ fine didn’t mean he wanted to talk to the bastard. Fine wasn’t good. 

He did a double-take, then; where the hell was Sam going? 

“Class,” Bonnie said, from where she’d fucking apparated by the staircase bannister. “It’s the first day.” 

_Brighter, then, but no_ smarter. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Shit.” 

Bonnie frowned. “I thought you’d be pleased; you’ve got a new toy coming in, don’t you?” Her tone was dark, but not truly angry; she was used to him. 

He shot her a look of feigned offense. “The hell are you implying? My intentions are honorable as always.” 

She rolled her eyes, then, and turned to return to Annalise’s office. Frank released the breath he’d half been holding. _Today, then._

Excellent. 

Frank almost never went to class with Annalise, but he’d been enough times to know her first-day spiel by heart. The title lure, the rising tension, the public call-outs, the secret-clubhouse invitation at the end to seal the deal. The kids fell for it every damn time. This time was no different: they got a whole damn houseful, kids sitting on the stairs and the floor and his desk to listen to the would-be-murderess of the week tell her sad tale. Frank kept one ear on the client, but mostly, he scanned the crowd. Familiar faces by then; he had gotten around to cyber-stalking the rest of the class, in the days between the threats and the deed. He didn’t much care about them, though; he was looking for her. 

He found her, at last, alarmingly close, almost at his elbow. Smirked a bit on reflex, and saw her eyebrows knit together a big closer before she returned her eyes to the client. _Well then._

Bonnie had to prompt him for his line. _Unlike all your other teachers,_ all that. He performed as usual, but his heart wasn’t in it. His blood was thrumming; Laurel or the kill, he honestly couldn’t say; hoped it was the former, but wondered. 

When the client was finished, had dried her eyes and composed herself, when Annalise ushered her into her office and the others dispersed in search of files and evidence they wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with yet, Frank took a seat, let his mind wander. _When,_ he couldn’t help but wonder, _will they all find out?_

The disappearance was big news on campus already, he knew that much, and it couldn’t possibly take long to find her; corpse water had to taste like _something,_ didn’t it? _Eugh. No more wandering, then. Focus. Focus on_ something. 

He picked a file and dug in. Unfortunately, it seemed that was all it took to attract the students like flies. The stupid questions kept him occupied him for the rest of the morning, though, so whatever. He waited for Laurel to come up with one, but she never did, just holed up in the corner with a pilfered box of files till Annalise kicked them all out. He watched her--couldn’t help it--and wondered what she was thinking. Wondered if she was thinking, enough to matter to Annalise, enough to earn her place. Contrary to what Bonnie said, they _did_ have to earn it, no matter what good words Frank put in. 

He was hopeful, but from afar, he couldn’t tell. The walls he’d seen around her in that photo, weeks ago, were firmly in place, with a few more to spare--first day jitters, maybe, but who knew. He smiled at her, once, when they both glanced up, but that only seemed to make it worse. 

*** 

Frank realized, during the weeks that followed, that he might have made some faulty assumptions. 

First, that Laurel would want to be there. He’d taken for granted that she would, that any of them would. Had assumed that with every batch, and had never been proven wrong. This time, though...she was so damn quiet, and when she _did_ speak, it was usually to call bullshit on the whole enterprise. Hell, the first time she approached him, it was with information damning their client, and she seemed genuinely surprised when all he did was shrug. Indignant. Morally perturbed. With other girls, years before, he might have feigned concern, hashed out zealous advocacy in softer terms, but with her...he didn’t know. Playing nice felt wrong. Not morally, but...she was smarter than that. Worth more. He wanted to show her the truth. 

...So he needled her. Couldn’t help himself. Wanted to see what happened when she saw him for the ass he was. He worried she’d shrivel, crumble, back away. Instead, she called him a misogynistic ass and stalked off, head held high. Defensive, yes, but with an offensive to match. He was...not disappointed. 

He stayed back after that, though, for awhile, even after Annalise chose her. Didn’t know quite why, but couldn’t move closer, couldn’t make the first move this time. It wasn’t like him. If he’s being honest, it pissed him the fuck off. Weirded the others out, too, he could tell. Raised eyebrows from Annalise, at the end of the kiddies’ first full day. “You’re being good,” she said. “What, did I pick the wrong one?” He played it off, of course, shrug and a smirk, but he had no answer. 

Maybe that was what prompted Annalise, _master_ needler, to call him on the whole thing to Laurel’s face. _Frank’s girl;_ Jesus Christ. He couldn’t look away, though, when Laurel met his eyes, scandalized, angry. He loved it. God help him, he loved making her mad. 

(When he called Annalise on it later, she scoffed. “She needed a push,” she said. “Now that she wants to prove herself, maybe we’ll get something out of her.” Frank wasn’t sure, though; part of him was sure she’d just done it for kicks.) 

Regardless, Annalise was right: if Laurel hadn’t been competitive before--and she hadn’t seemed to be, not really--she was then. She took risks she shouldn’t have. Broke rules. Broke _laws._ He hadn’t expected that, either, nor had he anticipated his reaction. He called her an idiot, got in her face, yelled, somehow, without raising his voice. It wasn’t needling anymore; he was pissed. He’d have told you, at the time, that it was on Annalise’s behalf, that he was protecting _her,_ and that would have been true, to an extent: Annalise could legitimately have lost her license for that nullification stunt. It wasn’t just that, though. He knew it wasn’t. He wanted to protect Laurel, too, from her own rash, idealistic bullshit. 

None of that stopped it happening. For all their bluster and anger and spite, they came together, crashed into each other one night after the worst fight yet. He should have seen it coming, really; the line between love and hate is a fine one and all that. In that moment, though, he was taken by surprise. He lost himself, felt her lose it too, until she pushed him away. “I have a boyfriend,” she said, and that was that. 

(Sasha barely entered his mind, a fleeting figure, a cameo at best.) 

They went on and off and on again after that, like a couple of reality-show brats, but the tension--the glances, the stares, the thread of feeling between them whenever they were in range--never left, not really. For Not A Couple, they didn’t stray too far from their shared orbit. 

It was crazy--Frank was a simple man with what one might call simple needs. He didn’t do complicated. This time, though, he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. He watched her, always; saw her play mama bear for the Puppy, play ref amongst the others, and sometimes, just occasionally, let loose. Smile. Laugh. Make a raunchy joke. Fuck it; he fell for her, hard, righteous indignation and all. 

And somehow, she kept coming back. 

To half of him, that is. The half she knew. The half that didn’t kill.


	17. Chapter 17

In a good and righteous world, he’d have put her first. In the end, though, their shit--the kissing, the fighting, even the fucking--came second to The Rebecca Problem. Lila’s murder. The investigation that wouldn’t fucking die. He’d thought, he’d really thought that he could leave it all behind him, that his ass would stay unbitten after that night on the roof. Maybe he should have known better, but shit, how could anyone have anticipated the fucking Puppy dragging it all onto their doorstep like a bad dream? 

They would work it out, though; he believed that, had to believe that. Had to believe in Annalise, who had never let him down before. Above all, he had to stay quiet. Let it happen. Aid and abet when necessary--plant evidence, wrangle the kids, whatever--but stay out of the spotlight, and Jesus, avoid Sam. Sam, whose calm made his skin crawl. Sam, who’d gotten that girl fucking _pregnant_ before having him choke the life out of her. Sam, whose smooth talk and reassurances just kept coming as suspicions zeroed in, a noose around his neck. Sam, who could hand Frank over on a silver fucking platter whenever he damn well pleased. 

...Sam, who disappeared. 

When he hung up the phone after Annalise told him, he just laughed. Laughed manically, hysterically, until he found that he was crying. Lost his breath, laughing, then just sat. Happy? Maybe. Something. 

He considered that Annalise might have done it. Had to. Motive? Definitely. Means? He didn’t doubt it. Her voice on the phone sounded sincere--choked out sobs, wet sucking breaths, the works--but in all his life, he’d never met a better liar. Hell, he hoped she had done it; the body would stay hidden if she had, and with it, Frank’s secret. If Sam had run off on his own, the guillotine would hang forever. 

He was better dead. 

*** 

He’d almost stopped wondering--stopped _caring_ \--when Annalise finally told him. 

“Bonnie must never know,” she said first, and he agreed. It was not the first time he’d heard that from her; she trusted them both to an extent--more than she trusted anyone else, anyway--but, Frank thought, she never really stopped seeing Bonnie as a small, scared child. Never stopped protecting her. It was different with Frank. She laid things bare for him. Told him shit straight. 

At least, he’d always thought so. 

“They did it,” she said. “They killed him.” 

“Who? Who killed who?” 

“The kids. Sam. Wes, he...Sam did it, Frank, and he was going to kill Rebecca, so Wes…” Another sigh, then. “It was justified.” 

Silence, then. It started raining lightly, court was about to start, but neither of them moved to go inside. Annalise tried to catch his eye, eventually reached for his arm, but he jerked away. 

“Frank,” she said, “I--” _“Don’t,”_ he said. So she didn’t. Eventually, she stood and headed in. 

He waited a few minutes, then followed. 

He should have just walked on when he saw Laurel inside, should have given himself time to process. He wanted to punch a wall, break his hand; if ever there was a time _not_ to talk to the woman one...fuck...one _loved,_ that was it. Especially given the context; what she’d done, what she’d been through without _telling_ him… 

Fuck it; he couldn’t not, and anyway, she was headed his way. Before he knew what he was doing, he laid into her. Barely knew what he was saying at the time, but when he played it back later, alone, over a mugful of whiskey, he would almost have to laugh. Of all things to call her, _hypocrite._ Hah. 

When he was done--when he stalked away into the courtroom, leaving her reeling--he felt better for a moment, then so much worse. He turned himself off for the trial proceedings, and didn’t return till he was back in his car, driving home. 

*** 

He was shocked by how well everything went, after that, all things considered. Annalise held them together, as usual, as always. She kept the kids from squealing, from panicking; hell, none of them even dropped out. They passed their fucking _finals._ Frank did what he could, even offered to whack Sam’s sister--if he could do it for Sam, he better damn well be able to do it for her--but it wasn’t necessary. Annalise did it all, arranged their fucked up gears into a fine machine, pushing each one just enough to keep them moving. Frank was still pissed--wouldn’t stop being pissed, deep down, for a number of years--but he had shit to do, and she was family, and she was fucking brilliant. They moved on. 

The last of Frank’s anger at Laurel evaporated, too, when he she broke down outside the house a few days later. She was quiet about it, wiping tears away before they fell, tucking her arms in tight as though to hide, and he just...he was no one’s definition of Type-A, but knew what she meant about the pain of sitting on your hands. All he wanted was to hold her, to fix everything, but she only let him stand beside her till the tears were gone. 

*** 

When the cops finally found Sam--charred, chopped, trashed--Frank was put to work again, doing what he did best. He felt a little shitty setting up Nate--good guy, dying wife, all that--but hell, it was Annalise; she’d get him off in the end. On top of that, it was the kind of damage control Frank actually liked: no blood, no fuss, no bodies. He was done standing by, and fuck if he wasn’t a little glad for it. 

It looked like it would end well, too, it really did, but the fucking Puppy just couldn’t let shit drop. Dragged Laurel into it, too; she had a soft spot for him, because of fucking course she did. Their Nancy-Drew routine ended with Rebecca tied up in Wes’s apartment, then in Annalise’s basement, then...well. 

Having her there was bad. Tying her up was bad. Taking care of the body, burying it and digging it up and burying it again someplace better...was bad. What was worse, though, than all of that, was seeing Laurel’s reaction, her bone-deep panic, manifest. Laurel in survival mode. Laurel asking him to fucking kill for her, for all of them, kill a girl who for all she knew was innocent. 

Laurel seeing his dark half after all, and trying to use it. 

He wants--wants?--to say he would have done it, had it come to that. He loved Laurel, loves her still, and could have forgiven her using him, in time. He knows better than most that when it comes down to it, even people like Laurel--the good, the righteous, the just--will do just about anything to save their own asses. Will lie. Will kill. He might have done it, if he’d had to, except...fuck. It was his crime Rebecca would have been paying for, and he had fucking _limits._ He did. Somewhere, deep inside, the two people he was were one, and that one had limits. 

Hell, Rebecca was a kid like he’d been: fucked up, beat down, criminal but fucking _trying._ Unlike him, though, she hadn’t fucking done it. Done _anything,_ really. He didn’t like her, she pissed him off, yeah, but fuck if he wanted her dead. 

He didn’t have to kill her, though. Someone else did--quickly, silently, alone--and it was done. Finally, finally, it was over. 

Maybe, finally, they could rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not: this will be the last basically-just-summarizing-canon chapter. From here, I'll be going my own way.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Edited on the morning of 2/21/16--very small dialogue change in the beginning, and a time change near the end, as well as some explanation for the client's continued presence.))

There was a lull, then, between catastrophes. Shit wasn’t perfect--Sinclair hung around like herpes, Wes and Laurel never quite gave up on Rebecca--but they got some new cases, nobody _stayed_ fired, and...life went on. 

Then Melissa Fucking Logan showed up. 

Annalise briefed the kiddies on the walk into the courthouse: Logan was a clinical psychologist working mostly with veterans and refugees. One of her patients had been murdered, and when the cops went to talk to her, she was nowhere to be found. They finally caught up to her three days later, staying in a shitty squat downtown with _another_ patient. 

“Lesson one, kids,” Annalise said, as though it was Day 1 all over again. “Never. Run.” 

“What do they actually _have_ on her?" Laurel asked. "Unless not answering your phone for a few days is illegal now.” Frank detected a note of indignance in her voice, though he suspected that was at least in part because they'd been dragged out of bed...inopportunely that morning. He stifled a grin. 

“Whatever they’ve got, it was enough for an arrest,” Annalise said. “We’ll know more when we grill her.” 

Asher cleared his throat. “So was she, uh…” Frank didn’t have to look to know he was making some obscene gesture or other. “Boinkin’ him? Or the one she was stayin’ with? Or… _both._ My bet’s on both. Come on, who’s in? Come ooon…” Bonnie smacked him in the arm, but a glance backward showed Frank that she was fuckin’ grinning. 

“It’s unprofessional,” Michaela said, “even if she wasn’t.” 

“Smart, though,” Connor added. “Give ‘em a few free sessions--” 

_“‘Sessions?’_...Bow chicka--” 

“Shut up, all of you,” Annalise said. The _family_ she was staying with came her from Afghanistan last month. She’s been counseling their children.” 

“Dammit,” Asher muttered. “Gotta kill my buzz like that?” 

“You wanna wait out front, Doucheface, or can you sit inside with the grown-ups?” Frank said. “Inside voice, at least. Jesus.” Asher looked down; they carried on in silence. 

Logan had gotten Annalise’s number years before from from a mutual friend, a psychology professor at UPenn who’d gone to grad school with Sam. She’d spent most of the night in lockup--said she hadn’t wanted to _wake_ anyone--but seemed no worse for wear. Forty-five or fifty, maybe five-foot-one and boyish, but shaking each hand firmly in turn, she seemed much larger. Not intimidating, just...sturdy, somehow. 

“What a mess,” she said airily. “Sorry about all this. You didn’t… _all_ have to come, did you, just to pick me up?” 

“They’re my students,” Annalise said. “Here to learn. Ignore them. Are you alright?” 

“Been worse,” she said. “After Croatia in ‘91, not much shocks you. So do we just…” 

“We’ll go before a judge, get them to let you out on bail, then you’ll come back to my office, and we’ll figure something out. Have you called anyone else? Family? Friends?” 

“There’s nobody,” she said. “I’ve got the money, though, so don’t worry about--” 

“I wasn’t,” Annalise said. “Just thought you’d want some...moral support, considering the circumstances.” 

“Why?” Logan asked. “I didn’t do it!” 

Annalise made eye contact with Frank, raised her eyebrows, but he just shrugged. _Bigger balls than I had in her place,_ he thought. 

So they got her out, got her back to the house, and sat her down for The Talk. “What did they say to you,” Annalise asked, “during the interrogation?” 

“Well,” Logan said, “that they had me hog-tied, basically. My fingerprints at his place, the running, my notes…” 

“Fingerprints?” Annalise said. She ceased pacing and sat down across from the client, slouching slightly. 

“Oh, I can explain that,” Logan said. “I do house calls.” 

(Asher didn’t get a chance to quip before he got Laurel’s elbow in his ribs.) 

“With all your clients, or just with him?” 

“All of them. Sometimes they...they’re very traumatized, so it can be hard for them to go outside, some days. I’m flexible.” 

“And is that what you were doing at the Ahmadis’?” Annalise asked. 

Logan sighed. “No. Of course not. I...when I found out what had happened to Adrijan, I was frightened; I have enemies, still, from my time in Croatia, and. Well.” 

“So you went to stay with a _family?_ ” Michaela said, before Bonnie could shush her. Annalise didn’t move on, though, or chastise Michaela; just looked to Logan with a question in her eyes. 

Another sigh, then. “I...they were the only ones I could go to. They’re new to the country, nobody knows where they live, so I thought…” 

Annalise brought a hand to her brow, sighed, and stood again. “The jury won’t like that,” she said, “but we’ll play it off. _Somehow._ ” 

“There was no real _danger,_ ” Logan said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d thought there was. I--” 

“Like I said,” Annalise cut in, “we’ll figure it out. For now, alibi. Early analyses put time of death around eleven P.M. on the 20th. Where were you then?” 

“With a friend,” Logan said evenly. “Lena Markham. We had dinner, caught up--it had been a few years--and lost track of time, I suppose. I got home around...one?” 

“And she’ll verify that?” Annalise asked. 

“Of course. Why wouldn’t she?” 

“And you mentioned that to the police?” 

“Yes. Why? Should I not have--” 

“No, no, you did well. This should be easy enough. For now, you just...sit tight. I’ll make some coffee. Are you hungry?” 

They broke for lunch, then; Asher was sent for sandwiches, the others began leafing through case files, and Frank...sat there. Waited his cue, the part where something shady needed doing. Felt useless. 

It was wonderful. 

*** 

That lasted another six hours or so, until Annalise stormed out of her office, set a laptop on the table in front of Logan...and pressed “play” on a video of her leaving her own apartment building at 10:07 PM on the 20th. She fast-forwarded a few hours, till 12:18, at which point Logan re-entered the building. 

“The prosecution,” Annalise gritted out, “is going to _find_ this. They’re going to find it, and they’re going to use it to destroy your shit alibi. Do you understand me?” 

“How in hell did _you_ find that?” Logan asked. She sounded legitimately scandalized; Frank saw Bonnie roll her eyes from across the room. 

“It wasn’t hard,” Annalise said. “That’s the problem. You seem like a smart woman, Ms. Logan; I thought you’d know better than to lie to me.” 

“Lena will back me up,” Logan said. “In court, if she has to.” 

“I know the prosecutor. He’s good. You had three days to create that alibi; he _will_ dig deeper.” She turned to Frank, then. “Take care of this?” 

Frank stood, stretched his legs, and reached for his coat. “Will do,” he said. “What’s the address?” 

He did a little digging, first--literally and figuratively. The building super, as it happened, did not live on site, so Frank followed him to his duplex in the suburbs. From there, it was almost too easy: three vicodin bottles with three different names on them, none of which turned out to belong to actual people. 

“It’s 50/50,” he said to Annalise when he got back to the house, “he shares cans with his neighbor, but if we get Hair Gel’s boo to hack the pharmacy and they _are_ his, it should be enough to get him to delete the tapes.” 

“Good,” Annalise said. “Connor, call him, get him over here.” 

“No, Annalise,” Connor said, “Not again. Not for...there are other ways. Have Michaela put on her receptionist voice and _call_ the pharmacy. I--” 

“My _what_ voice?” Michaela snapped. 

“I’m just saying, I’m not bringing Ollie into this again. Not for _this._ ” 

Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten Logan’s presence entirely. When Frank glanced her way, he found her looking horrified. Apparently eye contact was what it took to get her protesting. “Ms. Keating,” she said, “is this...is any of that legal?” 

Annalise sighed. “No less legal than perjury, Ms. Logan, and they’ve got you on tape swearing by that alibi. Do you want your friend in the cell next to yours?” 

Logan did not protest again, and by the end of the night, the security tape had gone the way of the buffalo. 

The others went home relatively early; it really was a simple case, all things considered. Logan hung around, though--said they hadn't finished sweeping her place for evidence yet, and that anyway, it was good for her to keep busy. She and Frank sat mostly silent, Frank tying up loose ends from the day's misdeeds, Logan doing...whatever disgraced psychologists do, Frank supposed. 

“Frank, was it?” she said, finally, around nine. 

He blinked the screen-glare from his eyes and turned her way; her face was inscrutable. “Yeah,” he said. “Who’s askin’?” 

Logan chuckled. “Just making conversation,” she said. “How long have you worked for Ms. Keating, Frank?” 

“‘Bout fifteen years,” he said. Turned away. Faked a little typing for good measure. Knew _analysis_ when he saw it. 

“Are you angry,” she asked, “about what you had to do earlier today?” 

“What? Had to do what?” 

“Break the law,” she said. “Follow that man home. Dig through his trash.” 

“‘S not actually illegal,” he said. “Once it’s at the curb, it’s public.” 

“Good to know,” Logan said, “but...what’s your official position here?” 

_Jesus._ “Assistant,” Frank said. “What’re you gettin’ at?” 

Logan raised her hands in surrender. “Just curious,” she said. “It seems...unconventional, but whatever works.” 

She was quiet again after that, for awhile. Frank kept working--the prosecution had send some discovery documents over already, and he wanted to make a dent in them before heading home--but kept noticing Logan looking over at him. 

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” he said, finally, “but I’m happily taken.” 

She laughed aloud at that. “Oh trust me, son, you’re not my type.” Her face softened. “You’re much too defensive.” 

“Sure you’re not just nosy?” he shot back. No real venom in it, but he did wish she’d leave him be. Not _wonder_ quite so much. 

“Occupational hazard,” she said. “I work with a lot of defensive people. People who’ve been through things you wouldn’t believe. Who’ve _done_ things most people can’t imagine. Child soldiers are the hardest.” 

“I’ll bet,” Frank said. 

“They get this… _look_ in their eyes,” she said. “Even as adults, they’re...very guarded. Closed off. They...go someplace else, in their minds. It’s my job to get them to open up, so...you’ll forgive me, it’s an old habit at this point.” 

Frank gritted his teeth. “When you’ve got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right?” 

“Right,” she said, voice quieter. “You start to see the signs everywhere. Of trauma.” 

Frank nodded. “Sad,” he said. “Hey, you want some coffee?” 

“No, thank you. Frank?” 

“Hm?” 

“How many people have you killed?”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2-23-15 for some dumbass typos/issues. No major changes, though.

Frank barked out what thankfully turned out to be a laugh. “'Scuse me?” 

Logan smiled a little. “Shocker question,” she said. “Wanted to see how you’d react.” 

_Fuckin’ hell._ “And how’d I do?” 

She tilted her head to the side a bit. “Inconclusive. You certainly want me to think you’re shocked, but then, you also wanted me to think you were working just now.” 

Frank exed out of the Word window before him, which was by that time nearly full of nonsense text, interspersed with a few obscenities. “Well,” he said, “the answer is none.” 

“No work, or no murders?” 

Frank sneered. “Both.” 

Logan did not respond; just looked steadily into Frank’s eyes. 

He looked away first. “Think I’ll head out now,” he said, closing his laptop and stowing it in his bag. When Logan did not follow suit, he looked back to her, raised his eyebrows, sighed. “Gonna have to kick you out, too; Annalise doesn’t like clients here alone.” 

“Suits me,” Logan said, standing. “Give me a ride?” 

Frank did, pulling up ten minutes later in front of an Econolodge just off the freeway. “Nice place,” he said. Couldn’t help himself. Didn’t like her so much, anymore. 

“It serves its purpose,” she replied, getting out and moving around to the back seat to retrieve her duffel bag. “Do you know you do that?” 

“Do what?” 

“Make jabs,” she said. “At people who make you uncomfortable.” 

Frank smirked. “Some insight,” he said. “How much do I owe you?” 

Logan smirked back. “On the house. Tomorrow?” 

“You’ll have to ask Annalise,” he said. “Night.” 

Logan closed the back door behind her, nodded back at Frank, and headed inside. 

*** 

Frank arrived home to find a pajama-clad Laurel sitting on his couch, textbook open on her lap, blaring earbuds in her ears. She looked up when she heard him come in, pulled out the earbuds, and smiled. Things had been pretty easy between them, the last few weeks; he knew she still wondered about his involvement in Rebecca’s disappearance, but she’d stopped bringing it up, and part of him dared to hope she’d put it out of mind. He smiled back at her, dropping his bag by the door and coming to sit beside her. 

“Hi,” she said, leaning toward him, snaking an arm around his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he replied. He leaned in to kiss her, smiling, moving one hand to her thigh and leaning back into the arm of the couch. The textbook slid to the floor beside them with a thump. Laurel laughed, but did not break the kiss. 

She finally pulled away a few minutes later, eyes playful. “What kept you?” she asked. “Thought you said Annalise didn’t have you whipped anymore.” 

Frank groaned, ran a hand through his hair, sat up a bit. “Wanted to start in on the discovery,” he said. “Got wrapped up in it.” 

“Hmm, studious,” she said. “Thinkin’ about law school, next year? I can tutor you.” 

“Well, with an offer like that on the table, I’ll have to consider it,” he said, kissing her again. “You ‘bout done with that, or do I gotta go to bed alone?” 

She sighed. “I should stay up, but…” her smile returned, “if you make a strong enough case, I could be persuaded.” 

No more work was done that night. 

When Laurel fell asleep, though, Frank’s mind drifted back to Logan’s words. He worried; had to. Knew she’d be around, every day, probably, butting heads with Annalise, with him, saying things nobody needed said. Not now, after all that had happened. Not now that Laurel was comfortable, finally, lying prone beside him. 

_Inconclusive._

He’d have to conclude it, somehow. 

*** 

So when Logan arrived the next morning, Frank shot her a practiced smile and went right on pretending to listen to Asher, who was giving him an uncomfortably detailed description of some boobs he’d seen the night before. (Asher claimed they’d belonged to some sorority girl, but with what Frank knew about him and Bonnie...eugh.) In short, he tried to act as goddamn normal as possible, though he half thought that would just set off more psycho-alarms in the good doctor's mind. 

Annalise entered looking tired. “Good morning,” she said, voice bordering on sarcastic. “Hope you all slept well; we’ve got a lot to do. Today, our focus will be on character witnesses. Ms. Logan, I’d like you to make a list of your most sympathetic clients from the last two years. People who’ll sing your praises to the jury. People the jury will _like.”_

Logan shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “That information’s confidential.” 

“We’re not the police,” Annalise said. “And we’re not asking for their records, just their names. We just need to talk to them.” 

“I--I can’t ask them to do that,” Logan said. “Dragging them into my mess...no. I’m sorry. It would be unprofessional, unethical…” 

“Ms. Logan, you had your patients _harbor you as a fugitive.”_

“That was...it was an emergency, I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t--” 

Annalise laughed incredulously. “ _Was?_ The emergency isn’t over! You’re on trial for murder! How do you think those people will feel--those people who you helped get their lives in order--when they hear about your lethal injection? Is that what you want?” 

Logan shook her head, almost smiling. “Are you always like this? _On?_ Performing for a jury? Playing on emotions?” 

“I do what I have to to win my cases. I’m even willing to inconvenience a few sad veterans; monstrous, I know.” 

Logan sighed. Threw up her hands. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. A few. Ones I know can handle it.” 

Annalise smiled. “Good. Bonnie and Asher, pick up the next few boxes of discovery files from the courthouse. You four--” she pointed to Wes, Laurel, Michaela, and Connor-- “Go through the rest of the files the prosecutor emailed over last night. Frank? With me.” 

Frank stood and crossed the room, avoiding Logan’s curious eyes as he went. Once the door was shut behind them, he let himself relax slightly. He didn’t know what he was in for--a reaming-out or a job too sketchy for the client’s ears, most likely--but knew it would be better than sitting in that goddamn fishbowl. She’d zeroed in on him, he could tell. Watched the others, sure, but not with that laser focus. It had been years since he’d caught himself thinking “they know,” but...shit. 

“So what’s your read on her?” Annalise asked. 

Frank did not flinch, did not jar, did not hesitate. “Who?” he asked. 

“The client,” Annalise said. “I heard you two talking last night. How is she?” 

“Seems...fine,” Frank said, forcing a shrug. “Sorta just goin’ with it. ‘S weird.” 

“Can we trust her?” 

Frank smirked. “You don’t trust anyone.” 

“You know what I mean; is she being straight with us?” 

“I dunno,” Frank said. “She lied yesterday, obviously, and...she seemed sorta paranoid.” 

“Paranoid, how?” 

“Eh, you know, just...askin’ a lot of questions.” 

Annalise chuckled. “And who’s paranoid? Let her ask; answer her, when appropriate. What’s the problem?” 

“Isn’t one, Frank replied. “You asked.” 

“Alright. Once she's picked her witnesses, we'll start vetting them; until then, hold down the fort.” Frank nodded, stood, headed for the door. “Oh, and Frank?” He turned. “No sneaking off.” 

Frank grinned, nodded again, and left. 

The kiddies had entrenched themselves in work, not causing any trouble, so Frank went to his desk and picked up where he’d left off the night before. The case against Logan wasn’t great--her fingerprints in the vic’s apartment, the shaky alibi, the running, but nothing solid. When Frank opened the last evidence file in the bunch, though, he found the lynchpin: the notes Logan had mentioned earlier. She’d torn them out of the victim’s file, apparently, but somehow--stupid, _stupid_ \--forgotten to take out the trash. Not a lot of analysis going on there: most of the page was full of expletives. Fucking bastard, asshole sonofabitch, the works. Still circumstantial, and Annalise could handle it, but far from ideal. 

Laurel crept up on him from behind about an hour in, one hand resting casually on his shoulder. Nothing blatant, but present, if anyone cared to look. Just her style. 

"You busy?" She asked 

“Little bit,” he said, putting a hand over hers, “yeah.” Normally, they’d have stayed like that for a few minutes, talking idly, before making their excuses, but that day, he removed his hand after a moment and kept working. 

Laurel retreated a bit, but kept reading over his shoulder. “Damn,” she said, under her breath. “What’s that one say?” 

She was pointing to a bit of writing on the bottom right hand corner of the last scanned page. It was written in some foreign alphabet. 

“Hell if I know,” he said. “Don’t much care, either.” 

“Ms. Logan,” Laurel said, “can you come here a sec?” 

“Laurel,” Frank groaned, moving to close his laptop, but she held it open. Smirked a little when he looked her way. 

“I’m curious,” she said. “We’ll have to find out eventually, won’t we?” 

All Frank wanted was to avoid Logan’s attention, that was fucking _it,_ but he couldn’t exactly say as much to Laurel. He reopened the laptop and waited for the client to approach. 

“Whaddaya need?” she asked. 

“We’re looking at your, uh, notes, and were wondering what...this says.” Laurel turned the laptop to face Logan. 

Logan sighed, suppressed a smile. “Piece of shit,” she said. “In Croatian.” 

Frank could more or less hear Laurel’s awkward smile behind him. “Uh...why?” she said. 

“It was true,” Logan replied. “I don’t suppose you’ll want me to go into why on the stand?” 

“No,” Annalise said; Frank felt Laurel startle at her sudden appearance in the doorway. “Absolutely not. We’ll say you were stressed for personal reasons, taking out those frustrations on what _happened_ to be the victim’s file. Frank? Move on. Laurel? Get back to work.” Her look brooked no disagreement. Laurel squeezed Frank’s hand one more time and went back to her post on the couch. 

Logan lingered, glanced between Frank and Laurel once, twice before returning to her own seat. 

Frank worked through the afternoon doing his damndest not to think.


	20. Chapter 20

After much moral agonizing, Logan produced sixteen names and broad-strokes backstories. Bonnie and Annalise weeded out the obvious no-gos, then had Bonnie call the rest; in the end, they were left with ten suitable candidates willing to testify. 

While Bonnie began setting up appointments, Annalise turned her attention back to Logan. “That’s all we need for now,” she said. “We’ll call you when it’s time to come back.” 

“Absolutely not,” Logan said. “I’m staying. This could put some of them in very fragile states; I need to make sure they’re okay. It’s bad enough making them do this in the first place...No. No way.” 

Annalise sighed. “There’s a coffee shop just down the street; we can call you if they need you, but they’re much more likely to be honest with us if you’re not here.” 

“How do you figure?” Logan said, not moving from her seat. “They trust me; I know everything about them.” 

“You know what they want you to know,” Annalise replied, “which doesn’t necessarily include their honest opinions of you.” 

Logan scoffed. “They’re not _stupid,”_ she said. “They know I’ll be there in court, anyway, to hear whatever they say. I’ll brief them, tell them to be honest, but I’m not leaving.” 

Annalise sighed. “Fine,” she said. Do what you want, but...don’t say anything. leave the coaching to us.” 

“Coaching?” 

“No one’s born a strong witness, Ms. Logan; we want to get all their slip-ups out of the way here, before they take the stand.” 

“You won’t ask them to lie, though,” Logan said. It was not a question. 

Annalise did not respond, just gave the woman a withering look and began handing out prep questions. 

They heard some godawful stories that day: bombings, murders, shootouts, kidnappings, deaths. They heard from war orphans and soldiers and unwilling expats. They saw a lot of tears. Annalise started slow with each witness, asked softball questions till she was sure they could take the hard stuff, but with the ones who could--veterans, mostly, and some of the older refugees--she did not hold back. Played prosecution. Grilled. 

Once they’d all cleared out, she looked at each of them in turn eyebrows raised. “Thoughts?” she asked. “Ideas? Favorites?” 

“Well, the refugees will pack the biggest emotional punch,” Bonnie said, glancing through her notes, “but there’s the issue of reliability, and if we end up with a racist jury, all bets are off.” 

“I’d strike Besirovic,” Michaela said. “He gave me the creeps.” 

“Totes,” Asher said. “I think he was checkin’ out my junk.” 

“I promise he wasn’t,” Connor said, “but yeah, those eyes...eugh.” 

“I liked the Jordan woman,” Laurel said. 

“What, the cult lady?” 

“She’d play well with women; nobody likes a polygamist.” 

“What about Michaels?” 

“Didn’t he kill someone?” 

“He was a kid; it was his abusive brother.” 

“Still, though, there’ll be some law-and-order types, and he got off with a slap on the wrist.” 

Logan did not contribute, just sat there, shaking her head. 

Finally, they decided on three: two veterans and a Syrian refugee woman who swore that Logan had saved her life. 

“Does that work for you?” Annalise asked, eyeing Logan. 

“I don’t suppose I have much choice,” Logan said. “Those three can handle it, at least. Mitchell’s made so much progress these last few months, and Liliane’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. They can do this. It...might work.” 

“Sooo...half day?” Asher said, half-standing already. 

“Sit down,” Bonnie said. “We’ve got four more boxes of discovery to wade through tonight. If you get started now, you might get out before six.” 

*** 

Around seven, Annalise's office doors swung open. “I want my house back,” she said. “Go home. Be back tomorrow at nine. Go.” She didn’t have to say it twice; four fifths of the rat pack were gone within three seconds, leaving a flurry of papers in their wake. 

“I want a drink,” Laurel said. “You comin’?” 

Frank saw Bonnie’s judgey face over Laurel’s shoulder, knew there’d be hell to pay if he cut out _this_ damn early. Sighed. “Gimme an hour,” he said. “I’ll make you dinner, open some wine, how’s that?” 

Her smile was weary. “Make it whiskey,” she said, “and we have a deal.” She squeezed his arm quickly before leaving, and he couldn’t help staring after her. 

He’d almost forgotten about Logan, who sat, still, on their goddamn sofa. Quiet. Watching. 

“Mind giving me a ride again?” she asked, when he turned around. 

“How’d you get here?” he asked. 

“Bus,” she said. “My car’s in evidence, too.” 

He sighed. “Like I said, I’ll be here awhile.” 

“I can wait.” 

And wait she did. She was silent this time, save for the occasional key-stroke. It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did, having her there, but he couldn’t focus. Stared idly at each page of evidence for more minutes than it was worth before turning it over and moving on. Lagged. Finally, after probably twenty minutes, he stopped. 

Bonnie gave him a questioning look as he stood, shrugged on his coat, gathered his things, but he was undeterred. “You ready?” he asked, gesturing to Logan. She nodded, put away her own laptop, and stood to follow him out to his car. 

They made it a mile and a half without speaking; Frank almost thought she’d leave it be. That he’d seemed sufficiently cowed all day to satisfy whatever control fantasy was driving her. No such luck, though: five minutes into the drive, she spoke. 

“I’ve got a confession to make,” she said. There was nothing apologetic in her voice. Frank turned to look, but her face was unreadable. 

“Don’t,” Frank replied. 

“I googled you, yesterday. It wasn’t a total guess.” 

Frank said nothing; sped up slightly. 

“Was Torres the first?” 

Frank kept his eyes on the road. Schooled his features. 

“Didn’t think so. How old were you, the first time?” 

Silence. 

“I’ve got to say, reading about your case gave me more faith in Annalise. It was an excellent idea, using those other murders in the defense. Nobody thinks children can do such terrible things until they meet one who has." 

Frank gripped the steering wheel tighter. Did not blink.

"Did she know you were guilty, then?" A pause. "Does she know _now?"_

“You have quite an imagination,” Frank said, “but I’ve never killed anybody.” 

“Was it your father who started it? Who made you do it, at first? Who taught you how?”

Frank clenched his jaw. “We’re here,” he said, because they were, and he had parked, and she needed to fucking _go._

She stared at him for a few moments, as though considering. “Eleven,” she said. “That’s my guess. Am I close?” 

“I have dinner plans.” Frank said. He’d kept his voice even so far, but his control was fading fast. He didn’t hit people--not his style--but oh, how he wanted to, to shut her up, to get her _out…_

“You do indeed,” Logan said, face brightening in a way Frank didn’t like at all. “Laurel. Does she know?” 

“Get out.” 

“She loves you, I can tell. And you love her.” 

Frank did not respond. 

“She deserves to know. As does Annalise.” 

Frank did not raise his voice or his hand, did not yell, did not even bother denying. Intimidation wouldn’t work with this woman, nor would denial. She had her teeth in him now, and nothing would make her let go. 

“Please,” Frank said, instead. “Just go inside. Get some sleep. Worry about your own damn case.” 

Logan smiled, then, a sad, hard smile. “You’ll tell them,” she said. “Before my damn case is done.” 

She didn’t go on; didn’t have to. 

“Good night, Frank,” she said, and just before the door closed behind her: “Good luck.” 

*** 

He drove home in a daze. Knew, deep down, that Logan was full of shit. She had no evidence, no _argument,_ even, beyond her own psychobabble, and he’d lived in lawyerland for long enough to know how little that shit was worth. Beyond that, he’d _had_ his trial. It was over, and she had no way to tie him to any of the others. 

_To Lila._

By the time he got home, he’d almost convinced himself. 

“Took you,” Laurel said, handing him a glass of red wine before he could get his coat off. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Client had me chauffeur again, talked my ear off.” 

“About the case?” Laurel asked. 

“Yeah. The witnesses, all that. She’s worried.” 

“Do you think she did it?” 

Frank hadn’t, when he’d met her, but… “Dunno. Maybe.” 

“The shit she’s seen...Jesus. Like I said, the whiskey’s coming out tonight.” 

Frank wholeheartedly agreed. He clinked his glass with hers, handed it back to her for a moment to remove his coat, then followed her into the kitchen. 

He tried, over simmering pots and full plates and ever-refilling glasses of wine, to act Natural. To Be Himself. To talk and laugh and be who Laurel knew. She saw through it, though; she always did. “What’s up?” she asked, polishing off her first two fingers of whiskey. 

“Nothin’,” Frank said, refilling his own glass. “Guess all that...shit today got to me, too.” 

“Aww,” Laurel said, kicking him lightly under the table. He smirked and _yeah, yeah_ -ed like he had to, but her eyes--the genuine care he saw there, underneath the laughter--broke him just a bit. 

It was a good evening; it was. They ate and drank and kissed and fell asleep together, and it was good. That night, though, Frank dreamed of his hands around Laurel’s throat, her blue eyes growing wider, darker, wilder till the lights went out. Dreamed of the waves swallowing the both of them and never letting go.


	21. Chapter 21

It wasn’t as though he’d never thought about it before. Telling someone. A few years into his time with Annalise, he’d seriously considered it. He’d seen some of the scum she’d defended--killers, rapists, real sick fucks--and for all that he’d done, he didn’t think she’d have it in her to turn him in. She, who’d made him up a spare bedroom three months in, during a big trial when there was no time to go home, and never took the sheets back. She who’d eventually started buying his percent of milk alongside her own. She who’d come to his granddad’s funeral and hadn’t said shit when he’d cried. She who knew every other damn thing about him, but let him back in every day, anyway. 

He hadn’t done it, though. Hadn’t had the balls. 

He’d thought of telling Laurel, too. Not just about the old jobs, either; about Lila. Had come close a shameful number of times. Had barely restrained himself. It was a visceral urge, with her, terrifying, like the little voice in the back of your head that tells you to jump from a height. _Destroy this,_ it said, and more quietly, _free her._

Part of him was sure she’d shatter if he did. She’d held it together through Sam’s death and everything after, held all the kids together, on the assumption that they’d killed a killer. _The_ killer. If that went away--if he _took_ that from her...well. Frank couldn’t help but see not telling her as a selfless act. 

But no, _no,_ fuck that. She was strong, so fucking strong; she’d break _him,_ tear him to shreds with her own sharp edges and leave him to bleed. He’d let her do it, too. Readily. He’d known all along, deep down, that he could not keep her. 

Except he hadn’t, had he? Dumb fucker, he’d let himself _hope._ As long as he hid it, he could pretend--that if he told her, she’d cry and hit him and leave...then come back. With her in the dark, he could pretend that their whole damn thing, whatever it was, wasn’t predicated on the notion that he did not fucking kill. Could pretend that she wouldn’t have dumped his ass for good if he’d done what she’d asked, that day with Rebecca. 

He knew the moment he woke, shaking, that he wouldn’t make it back to sleep. He moved to stand, to rise and dress and find something, _anything_ to do, but he was pulled back: Laurel’s arm around him, holding fast. He turned--gently, gently-- to face her, and found her eyes shut, face half covered by sleep-touseled hair. Asleep. Deeply so. 

He relaxed into her instinctively, tucking his arm under her own, over her waist. Took what she offered selfishly. Pushed away, as best he could, the thought of losing it. 

*** 

His phone buzzed on the night table beside him just as the sun rose; Annalise. “Trial date set,” the message said. “2/28” 

_Four days._

After a last look at Laurel’s sleeping face, he lifted her arm from his body, extricated himself as gently as possible. She stirred but did not wake, and he made his way out of the room and into the shower. 

Logan wasn’t above telling them; Frank knew she wasn’t. Had seen it in her eyes. She didn’t have a hell of a lot--a seasoned sense, a cocky surety--but after all that had happened, he knew it would be enough. They’d start looking at him funny. Start wondering Start asking questions he wasn’t fucking ready to answer. After everything… 

_Fuck._

He turned the water on cold enough to sting and just stood there, taking it. Trying to get numb. 

He flinched when the door opened and a naked Laurel entered. Reached for the temperature knob quickly, but not quickly enough. _“Jesus!”_ she said, jumping back at the first splash of water on her skin. “What the hell?” 

“I was hot,” he said. “Think I might be comin’ down with somethin’.” 

Laurel took a step back, grabbed a towel to wrap around herself. “Okay,” she said, “well, I’ll...make coffee. Lemme know if you need anything.” She gave him a lingering look, a question in her eyes, but did not press the issue. 

He wanted to tell her to stay, wanted to turn up the heat and act like a human, but he let her go. Spent another ten minutes under the freezing spray. 

He and Laurel went into the office together an hour later, beating the others by a solid half hour. “Morning,” Annalise said. “Coffee’s on. You get my text?” 

Frank nodded. “We gonna be ready?” 

Annalise slumped a bit against the wall. “We’ll have to be. Another box of discovery came in this morning, and we’ve still got to go through all her old patient files, but with some long nights…” She sighed. “We’ve dealt with worse.” 

The morning passed slowly, but without incident. Annalise had them go back twenty years in the patient files. “These are troubled people,” she said. “Some are criminals. The prosecution will use that to malign her reputation. We have to be ready.” Mostly, though, the files were just sad. A few Stockholm Syndrome killers, the odd wife-beating veteran, but nobody without a sob story to back up his bullshit. Nobody beyond sympathy. Frank’s eyes began to glaze over. 

When he went to drop off Annalise’s Thai order, Frank found her frowning deeply into her own stack of files. “What’s up?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” she said. “Long day.” 

He didn’t buy it, but didn’t press the issue, just sat down across from her and opened his own box of food. They ate in silence for awhile; Annalise turned a page in the open file periodically, but when she reached the end, she didn’t open another. 

Finally, she looked up at Frank, put down her takeout container, and crossed her arms on the desk in front of her. “What’s going on?” she asked. 

“What do you mean?” 

“It’s been fifteen years, Frank. You don’t think I can tell by now when you’re upset?” 

Frank set his jaw as he had so many times in the last forty-eight hours; it was beginning to ache. “I’m fine,” he said. “Didn’t sleep much, is all.” He smirked, hoped she’d make her own wrong assumptions. 

She didn’t. “Frank,” she said, “Don’t lie to me. We’ve all seen where that leads. If there’s something you need to say, say it.” 

He shook his head. “There’s not. I’m good. This is a tough case, that’s it. I’m tired. And...shit’s been rough with Laurel. She and the Puppy still think I had something to do with Rebecca, so…” He shook his head. “Look, do we have to talk about this?” 

Annalise’s face softened. “No,” she said. “Go. Work.” 

Frank let himself out, trashed the last of his pad thai, and swallowed down the bile that had risen in his throat. 

*** 

The two days that followed were much the same: Arrive at work. Push papers around. Find nothing. Go home. Lie, say nothing’s wrong. Ignore the concerned furrows in Laurel’s brow. Look away. Try to sleep. 

Logan popped in a few times each day, asking after her client-witnesses, poking through files with the kiddies for an hour or two. Shooting pointed looks Frank’s way when no one else could see. She didn’t say anything--hadn’t spoken to him at all since that second night in the car--but her looks said enough. _Tick tock,_ they said. _Go on._

He’s not going to say it didn’t occur to him to off her. In the smallest hours of the morning, awake and alone and exhausted, it sounded impossibly easy. His hands around her throat. Her voice, his secrets, dying. As soon as the image materialized in his mind, though, he shook it away. Shuddered. Went on thinking. 

_Let her say what she wants,_ he thought, most of the time, _then power through the denials. You’ve done it before, you’ll do it again. It’s what you do best. Lie just a little more, and this too shall pass._

He told himself that, over and over. Talked sense to the scary part of himself that wanted nothing more than to fucking _do_ it. Tell them both. Tell them everything. Rip off the decades-old bandaid, lance the boil, bleed. Say the whole sordid thing out loud. Maybe say it right.


	22. Chapter 22

The day before trial, and Frank still had not slept. It had never been a problem before, not really. During cases, sure, he’d often kept himself up, mainlining coffee and smacking his head when it drooped, but when the time had come, when his head had hit the pillow, he’d never had a problem. 

This? This was fucking torture. 

“Yo Frankie D,” Asher said; his light punch to Frank’s shoulder nearly made him drop his coffee. “Hugs not drugs, my dude. You alright?” 

“Fuck off,” Frank said. It came out much harsher than he’d expected, and suddenly, all eyes were on him. 

“Frank,” Laurel said, concern barely hidden in her admonishing tone. 

“About time he cracked,” Connor said, leaning back in his chair. “Welcome to the club, buddy.” 

Laurel wheeled on him, next. “Connor. Stop.” 

“Dick must be damn good,” Connor muttered. 

Wes and Michaela didn’t say anything, but he could feel their eyes on him, too. Wes looked sympathetic; Michaela, frightened. Frank grit his teeth and tried not to look at any of them. 

He was relieved when Annalise entered; she was too busy, too stressed to note the burst blood vessels striping his eyes, the bruise-colored bags underneath. 

“Alright, people,” she said. “One more day, three more boxes. Tomorrow, we drink, but today, we work. Michaela, Laurel, you’ll come with me for one last session with the witnesses; Bonnie, read over my opening statements; the rest of you, keep digging. I don’t want any surprises tomorrow.” 

Frank stared at one file for over an hour that day. He thought, later, that it might have been about a police interview, but he wouldn’t put money on it. 

Nobody bothered him. 

When Bonnie emerged from Annalise’s office a few hours later, presumably having finished with the opening statement, she came to Frank’s side and nudged his shin with her foot. He flinched, sat up straight in his seat, stared up at her. “What?” he said. 

“My question exactly,” she said. Beneath her annoyed facade, Frank saw sorrow. Saw fear. He realized, then, that over the past two days, he had not considered what all this would do to _her. Little sister,_ his flailing brain cried, senseless. _Family. Gone._

“Can’t sleep,” he said. 

“You’re not supposed to be sleeping,” she quipped back. Kicked at him again, lightly. “You’re supposed to be working.” 

“At _night,”_ he said. “At _all.”_

She frowned. “For how long?” 

“...Three days?” he said, trying, failing to count. “Four?” 

“The case?” she asked. He shook his head. Shrugged. Maybe nodded, just a bit. Whatever. He couldn’t feel his goddamn head anymore. 

“Come on,” she said, gesturing toward Annalise’s office. “Don’t let them see you like this.” 

He followed her, grateful. Waited while she filled a glass with whiskey. Barely watched to see if she dosed it; half hoped she would. Drank it down in seconds. 

“Sleep?” she said. He nodded, but didn’t. 

*** 

Annalise returned an hour later, looking pleased. Frank went to the living room to meet her; noted with a start that Logan was there, too. Smiling, smirking, _knowing._

“They’re ready,” Annalise said. “They’re perfect. Frank, why are you drinking?” 

Frank looked down, saw the glass still in his hand. Shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.” 

She shot him a withering glare, but didn’t deign to comment. “Where’s Bonnie?” she asked, instead. 

“Kitchen,” Connor said, smirking. “With Asher.” 

Annalise sighed, rolled her eyes, and went toward what Frank knew, even in his state, would be an unpleasant scene. Logan quirked an eyebrow, glanced from face to face before settling on Frank’s. “Those two?” she asked. “Really?” 

“I _know,”_ Michaela said. “Try not to think about it too much, if you value your sanity.” 

Logan chuckled. “Well, live and let live. Anything I can do here?” 

Connor gestured to box number two, which was sitting on the coffee table, half-empty. “Help yourself,” he said. “Hinky shit goes in the left pile, boring shit in the right. Try not to moralize all over anything important.” 

Logan seemed to be in an agreeable mood; she just sat down beside the others, picked out a file, and set to work. Still, Frank couldn’t bring himself to stick around and make nice; he headed for the kitchen, the lesser of two evils. 

Laurel stalked after him, though, and stopped him in the hallway. “What’s going on?” she hissed. “Are you _drunk?”_

“Maybe,” he said, curling an arm around her shoulders. “Maybe I am.” 

She shrugged him off. “Seriously? Right now?” 

_Fuck._ She was mad, on that of all days. Already. Before that bitch even gave her a reason. _Our last day,_ Frank thought, mind reeling. Thought he might cry. Shook his head. Failed to clear it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m...everything’s really fucked up right now, Laurel. I’m so damn tired, and…” 

She sighed. Lifted his arm and placed it back over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.” 

“Where?” 

“Out. Car, porch, wherever. Just...out of this house.” 

_I fucking love her._

“You tryin’ to take advantage of my altered state, Ms. Castillo?” he slurred. “For shame.” 

“Screw you,” she said. 

“Maybe if you’re good.” 

When they got out, though, they just walked. Walked until they reached a park Frank hadn’t known was there, then sat on a bench, side by side, for probably twenty minutes in silence. 

“Saturday,” she said, finally. 

“Huh?” 

“That’s when...whatever this is started. When you got all weird.” 

Frank didn’t respond; just stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, keeping rhythm, holding on to what peace he had left. 

“You gonna tell me?” she asked. Her voice was firm, quiet, but somehow fragile, too. Vulnerable. 

He sighed. “Want to,” he said, “but.” 

She turned, then, put a hand on his shoulder and turned him too, to face her. “Do it,” she said. “Tell me.” 

Her eyes on his held Frank in thrall. His hand slackened, but she gripped tighter. _Her eyes look like water,_ he thought. _Tears. Crying. No. Shit. Fuck._ He reached his free hand toward her face, but she batted it away. “Tell me,” she said. 

He dropped his eyes to his lap. “Can’t.” 

She stood, towered over him, tried to glare but failed. “Fuck you,” she said. Frank nodded. Felt the wind whip over his own wet cheeks. Let her walk away. 

*** 

When he stumbled back into the office some time later, he was met with Logan’s tiny, hulking form. The others weren’t there; Frank scanned the room, searching, but found nothing. Nobody. Wondered, briefly, if this was a nightmare. “Frank,” she said. Didn’t smile. 

_...Sad?_

“What?” he spit. Wiped a bit at a cheek, already dry. “What?” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“What? What did you…?” 

“Nothing. Nothing. Just...it’s difficult, isn’t it? Honesty?” 

“I didn’t,” he said. “Didn’t do anything.” 

She smiled, then, slightly. “You will,” she said. “Tonight.” 

Michaela entered, then, from the kitchen. Frank had never been so glad to see her. “There’s food,” she said. “Sandwich stuff and some chips. If you want it.” She didn’t meet his gaze, but didn’t look scared anymore, either. _Pity,_ Frank thought. _From Prom Queen. Fuckin’ hell._

Someone, Frank realized when he entered the kitchen, had been to the store: the counter was laden with meats and vegetables and at least four different kinds of cheese, two loaves of bread on one end, a bag of chips on the other. Annalise stood in front of it all, arms crossed before her; the others sat around the dining room table, like kids around a campfire. Talking, snarking, laughing. Laurel at the table’s head, holding court. It was probably Frank’s stomach that clenched, but...still. 

“Eat,” Annalise said. “Soak up the booze. Get your head straight. _Try.”_ Her tone was commanding, but not angry. When Frank didn’t move, she picked up a plate, put it in his hands, and physically pushed him toward the counter. 

_Fuck it._

__

__

_It’s over._

“I did it.”


	23. Chapter 23

Annalise frowned, uncomprehending. “Did what?” 

_Fuck fuck fuck_

“Nothin’,” Frank said, but his head was shaking, he was backing away, and Laurel was standing, approaching, and it was over, it was out and they’d never stop asking now, and he had to just fucking _do it_ because it would never stop, ever, and 

“Frank?” Laurel reached him, reached for him, but he flinched away. Couldn’t. Had to. _Fuck._

“My office,” Annalise said. “Now.” She brushed by Frank and didn’t look back, trusting him to follow. 

Laurel and Bonnie went first, Laurel pulling Frank along by the hand. When the door was closed behind them, all eyes went to him. _My show,_ he thought. _My mess. Time._

Annalise spoke first, though. “Did what?” 

Frank deflated, sank down into one of the client chairs, empty. The room was spinning. “Lotta shit,” he said. Looked into Annalise’s eyes. “Torres.” 

It took her a moment to recognize the name, but when she did, she mirrored Frank’s sigh, sank into her own chair. “Jesus.” 

“Who’s Torres?” Laurel asked. She was still standing, behind Frank, one hand on his shoulder. “Frank?” 

“Frank was my client,” Annalise said, “a number of years ago. Accused of murdering a man named Alvin Torres.” Her eyes darkened somewhat. “I got him off.” 

Frank felt Laurel tense behind him, but knew better than to move, to offer any comfort. Knew the worst was yet to come. 

“Those other cases,” Annalise said. “The other murders. Were they…?” 

“Others?” Laurel said. Frank did not turn, but heard the hitch in her voice. “Frank, what…” 

“My dad,” Frank said. “He, uh...he did most of ‘em. For pay. I...helped, when I was a kid, and later...the last five years or so were me.” 

Laurel stepped fully back at that. Out of the corner of his eye, Frank could see Bonnie, face blank. Looked away quickly. Annalise, though...she faced him head on. Kept going. Did not look back. 

“How many?” she asked. 

Frank didn’t reply. 

“You don’t know, do you?” Laurel asked. He turned to her, then, finally. Was surprised to see no tears in her eyes, just a hard, glassy stare, a raw rage. “How many. You didn’t count. You...Jesus.” 

He looked down. Away. 

“What brought this on, Frank?” Annalise asked. Her voice was somehow still even, but Frank could see the cracks in her composure, could sense that it wouldn’t last. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Logan,” he said. “She, uh...she pulled some spidey-sense bullshit, said she could tell, said she’d tell you if I didn’t, and I...it was bullshit, but I haven’t slept in days, and--” 

“Stop,” Annalise said, holding up a hand, silencing him. “What does she know?” 

“Nothin’, Frank said. “Nothin’...specific.” 

Annalise let out a sigh. _Relief?_ “I’ll handle her. Laurel…” 

Frank turned again, at the concern in Annalise’s voice, the fear. Laurel was headed for the door. “Laurel,” he repeated, moved to stand but thought better of it. “I’m--” 

“I won’t tell,” she said, voice breaking. “I just...I need to...I need to go. Think.” She hesitated, then, hand on the doorknob, and looked to Annalise. “Watch him,” she said. “Please. Take care of him?” 

Annalise nodded. Frank could see the tears in her eyes, and thought he might still be dreaming. “Go,” she said. “Say nothing to the others. Get out. I’ll call you when--” 

But Laurel was already gone. 

Annalise returned her eyes to Frank, then, kept them on him as she rose and walked toward the liquor cabinet. “Fifteen years, Frank. Fifteen _years,_ and you--” 

“I’m sorry,” Frank said. “I couldn’t...you didn’t need that, and I couldn’t--” 

“What is the _only_ thing I’ve asked of you, all of you, all this time, dammit? The one thing I required was that you tell me the damn truth. I said I’d protect you. From all of it. What the _hell_ did you think that meant?” 

“There are things you don’t...put on other people, Annalise. Things you don’t tell anyone. You know that.” 

Annalise poured herself a tumbler of vodka, tossed it back in one gulp, grimaced. “FUCK, Frank. Not here. Here you tell me--you tell _me_ everything. That’s the deal. How many clients have I...you’re _smarter_ than that. And you’re not a client. You’re...you and Bonnie, you’re my _family._ Do you not…? How could you not…?” 

“Family especially,” Frank said. His voice was quiet, then. “You...you care about someone, you don’t want them to know this shit. Don’t want them to _have_ to.” 

She laughed, a hard, harsh laugh, full of booze and anger. “In _your_ family, sure. A nice happy _normal_ family, where boys are raised up to-- _God,_ Frank. You should have told me, first thing.” 

“I know,” he said. “I know.” 

Bonnie piped up, then, from her corner. “Since you’ve been here,” she asked, “have there been...others?” 

Annalise’s eyes jerked up from her glass, and she turned, first to Bonnie, then to Frank. Held his gaze by force. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me, goddammit, or I swear to--” 

“Lila,” Frank said, and the room went silent. 

Frank would swear, later, that five minutes passed, maybe ten, before anyone spoke. Before anyone _moved._ Annalise’s eyes were hard, even through tears; Bonnie was sitting, now, in her corner, on the floor, knees to her chest, more childlike than Frank had ever seen her. 

The world was caving in, and the waves just wouldn’t take him. 

“Tell me you didn’t,” Annalise said, finally. her voice was low guttural, wet with tears and booze and emotion. “Say you’re lying. Say you’re--” 

“He figured it out, before my trial. Sam did. About my dad, about all of it. He had evidence, and he was going to get him put away. Me, too. Made me promise...made me say I owed him. That I’d do him one if he ever...that I’d repay him. So when he…” 

“Sam, then?” Annalise said. Her voice was stronger, now, her eyes risen to his. “It was Sam who…” 

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Yeah, but it was me who...you know.” 

“Strangled her,” Annalise said, voice strident, too loud, too _loud_ for what she was saying. “Choked the life out her her, twenty-one years old, _killed_ her for my bastard cheating husband, Frank I _trusted_ you, you _fucking--”_

She reached out, then, and struck him. Hard. His face stung, and it was the realest thing he’d felt all day, and he relished it. Preferred it to her voice, her words, the tears in her eyes. Wished it could all be that way: violent. Physical. _Quiet._

_“Fuck_ you,” she said. “I treated you like a son and you took that bastard’s orders and you _lied_ to me, to _all_ of us. You let us kill that girl, kill Rebecca. _You_ did that, and now--” she choked, then. Collapsed back into her seat. Bonnie stood, approached the desk, reached out as though to comfort her, and got a smack to match Frank’s. 

“Don’t touch me,” Annalise said. “Don’t you fucking touch me. Did you know?!” 

“No,” Bonnie said, looking to Frank, glaring. “No.” 

They were silent again, then, all three of them. It was almost peaceful after awhile. Sitting shiva for what they’d been, before. For what was over, now. 

Finally, Annalise wiped the tears from her cheeks, shook her head, and straightened up. Stood. Spoke. “Call her in,” she said, facing Bonnie. “Logan. If she’s left, find her.” Then, to Frank: “Stay here. Stay _quiet._ Let me handle this.” 

Frank blinked. Nodded. Stared up at this woman who was somehow, _somehow,_ still fucking coping. Found it in him to hope that he’d make it through after all. 

A chill ran through him, though, a second later. “Laurel,” he said. “Someone should be with her. She...where’d she go? What if she--” 

“I’d send Wes,” Annalise said, her tone challenging, “but she might tell him.” 

Frank didn’t even have to think. “Whatever,” he said. “Someone needs to...she needs somebody. Can I--” 

Her face softened incrementally, then. “I will,” she said. 

As she walked behind him, toward the door, she rested a hand on his shoulder, almost too briefly to notice. 

*** 

Annalise returned moments later, with both Logan and Bonnie in tow. Logan looked awfully pleased with herself, but once she was seated beside Frank in Hot Seat #2, solidly in Annalise’s sights, her smile began to fade. 

“He told you,” she said, “didn’t he?” 

Annalise sneered. “What in hell did you think you were doing, threatening my employees the day before your _damn_ trial?” 

Logan faltered. “You deserved to know,” she said, “and he deserved to tell you. You can’t heal from something like what he went through without--” 

“This is not your damn therapy couch, Ms. Logan. This is my office, these are my people, and this? This is you jeopardizing your own chances in court tomorrow, putting us all off our game, taking us away from our work. _Why?”_

Frank glanced Logan’s way to find her staring pointedly into the middle distance. “I help people,” she said. “He needed to do it, so I helped him. I was never going to actually tell you myself; deep down, I’m sure he knew that. If he hadn’t wanted to tell you already, he wouldn’t have chosen to believe me.” 

Annalise barked out a laugh. “Well, congratulations,” she said. “Now one of my employees is off recovering from shock, another’s sitting here, drunk and sleep-deprived, and the rest are out there, wondering what the hell is going on in here and doing jack _shit_ for you. Well done.” 

Logan balked. “You’re actually angry,” she said. “Do you wish you _didn’t_ know? Do you wish I’d let you carry on, clueless? Was that somehow better?” 

Frank thought, for a moment, that Annalise would hit her too, but she just clenched her fist, set her jaw, and let out a measured breath. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is what comes next. First things first: you won’t be telling anyone about any of this.” 

“I had no intention of doing that,” Logan said. “I just wanted--” 

“You won’t be telling anyone,” Annalise cut in, “because if you _do,_ the Philadelphia police will receive an anonymous tip about your connection with one Anton Zoric.” 

Logan’s face blanched as Annalise slid a file across the desk to her. She didn’t pick it up, just stared at it in abject horror. “How did you find that?” she asked. 

“Your patient files,” Annalise said. “You kept immaculate records going back all the way to your time with the U.N. Anton Zoric: child soldier in Croatia from 1993 to 1995. Rescued by peacekeeping forces and put into intensive therapy at a makeshift hospital in the region. Finally, after months of head-shrinking, revealed that he’d been drafted into the army by his uncle. _Adrijan_ Zoric. The victim. _Your_ victim.” 

It was Frank’s turn to balk. “How in _hell…?”_

Annalise gave him a withering look. “I got by somehow before you got here,” she said. “You’re not the only one who can dig.” 

Logan sighed. “Like I said, I have no intention of telling anyone. You don’t have to--” 

“Save it,” Annalise said. “If you don’t tell, this will never see the light of day. I’ll get you off tomorrow, you’ll go home and get on with your life, your practice, and this will live in my locked bottom drawer. Understood?” 

Frank assumes Logan nodded, then, but he was too busy watching Annalise to look. Watching her pull one over once again, find a way, find an out, _win._ Watching her save his ass. 

“Look alive,” she said, then, standing to escort Logan out. “I should have fired you as a client. Instead, I’ll see you back here at 9 AM tomorrow.” 

When they were alone again--the three of them, the office constants--Annalise returned to her seat, rested her head in her hands, and sighed. “Well that’s done,” she said, and Frank almost had to laugh at the anti-climacticism of that moment. 

Bonnie was the next to speak. “What now?” 

Annalise dragged her head back up. Almost smiled. “Now,” she said, “we send the kids home, you and I stay up all night working, and you,” she turned to Frank, “go home and tell your goddamn girlfriend what you’ve done.” 

Frank must have looked confused; for a moment it looked like Annalise would hit him again. “About Lila,” she said. 

“Annalise,” Bonnie said, sounding alarmed. “He shouldn’t...she might--” 

“She won’t. She’s a smart girl. Strong. And...she loves him. she won’t.” 

Frank stared at each of them in turn, then, back and forth...and nodded.


	24. Chapter 24

Frank brushed past the remaining kids, their questions, their worried faces. Pressed on, reached the door, left. 

He was surprised, when he got outside, by how damn early it still was. The sun had sunk behind the treeline, but its glow remained. The endless goddamn day was not over. 

He knew better than to head to his place, though Laurel had been living there near-exclusively for five months. His place, his things, their bed...it would be too much for her, now. He drove, instead, to her shitty old apartment, climbed the rickety stairs to her floor… 

And hesitated. 

She wouldn’t want to see him, he knew. Not yet, if ever. She preferred, always, to process alone, to tidy her own mind before facing the world. Still...more needed saying, so much more, and if he couldn’t say it that night, he didn’t know if she’d ever let him. 

It had to be done, and it had to be done _then._

There was no response to his first knock; he could hear people moving inside, low voices murmuring, but no footsteps coming his way. He knocked again, though, and again. Couldn’t stop. _Couldn’t._

Finally, Wes came to the door, opened it, and stood silently, facing him. Frank couldn’t tell from his face how much he knew, but it was clear, anyway, that Frank was not welcome. “What’re you doing here?” Wes asked. 

“I need to talk to Laurel,” Frank said. He did not match Wes’s confrontational tone; kept his own voice low, quiet. Sorry. 

“That’s not a good idea,” Wes said. He moved to shut the door in Frank’s face, and Frank didn’t try to stop him. Before the door clicked shut, though, Laurel was there, standing behind Wes, pulling it open again. “Let him in,” she said. 

Her voice just about killed him. Hoarse, rough, barely squeezing past the lump in her throat. He held his arms tight to his body, one gripping the other. Restraining himself. Holding back. He glanced at her face only briefly before he had to look away. _Jesus. Jesus Christ._

Wes hesitated before stepping aside, letting him in. They all just stood there for a moment after that until finally, Laurel stepped back toward the living room, gesturing for Frank to follow. 

“Wes,” she said, “thank you. For coming. But...I need to talk to Frank alone now. I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

Wes’s face grew dark at that. “Is that safe?” he asked. 

_Fuck._

Laurel let out what was either a laugh or a sob; maybe both. “Yes,” she said. “It’s safe. Just...please? Tomorrow?” 

Wes relented, then, walked himself to the door. “Text me,” he said, “before you go to bed, okay?” Laurel nodded. Dredged up a smile. With that, Wes left. 

Nobody said anything for a few seconds after that. Neither sat. They just stood there, stealing glances at each other before staring resolutely away. 

“Sit,” she said, finally. “I’ve got...we picked up some food on the way home, if you--” 

“No,” Frank said. “I’m...I’m fine. I just wanted to--” 

“Sit. Just...sit down. First. Then we’ll...talk. Okay?” 

So he sat, at one end of her ratty old couch, making himself small in his corner. Leaving her room. She sat at the other end, not shrinking from him, exactly, but certainly not reaching out. “Tell me,” she said. 

“Tell you...what? I already told you, I--” 

“No,” she said, shaking her head, wiping away a few remaining tears. “Not like that. Not the bare-bones facts of it. _Tell_ me. How it started. How it happened.” She gestured wildly, arms out to the sides, almost laughing. “Present your case. Explain.” 

“You want me to justify it?” Frank asked. “‘Cause I can’t do that, Laurel. I’m not gonna give you some shitty sob story, make you feel bad so you won’t--” 

She cut him off sharply. “No. No, fuck you, _listen._ You’ve lied to me. You’ve lied to me so many times. Told me as little as you could, as little as you could get away with, and I’ve accepted that. Fuck me, I let you do it, because I...I _liked_ you, liked what we had, and I didn’t want to break it. But I’m _done,_ okay? I’m done letting you hold your dark, secret past over me. You can’t keep being some shadowy figure in the dark, Frank. Talk to me. _Tell_ me. Please.” She’d kept composure through the whole speech, voice steely, until the end. She broke down, then, hands shaking. Sobbed. Wrapped her arms around her body, curled her knees up underneath her. Held herself in. 

She never once broke eye contact. 

So he told her. Every dirty, awful thing he’d done, from the first night with his father to the night Torres died. Told her about the arrest, about meeting Annalise, about getting away with it, just barely. When he came to Sam, though...he stalled. Stammered. 

“What?” she said. She had not moved closer to him, had not stopped crying, but she’d loosened her arms from her midsection, let her legs drop to the floor. Opened up. She dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. Stared at him expectantly. “Tell me. There’s more. What?” 

“Sam...he figured it out. During prep for my trial. I had this...necklace that my dad gave me. A St. Christopher medal. He’d taken it from one of the marks, said it was for protection.” Frank huffed out a short, sad laugh. “I always wore it, and one night, we were workin’ my case, and Sam saw it. Recognized it from an evidence file. Told me there was enough in the file to get my dad sent away. DNA at the scene, all that. Said he wouldn’t tell, but that...I owed him.” 

Laurel’s face grew dark again at the mention of Sam. She stiffened. “No,” she said. 

Frank forced himself to look her in the eyes. “You want me to stop?” 

She shuddered. Shook her head. “No. Keep...keep going.” 

So he did, right up until That Night. By then, it was obvious--she knew, he knew she knew--but she did not stop him, so he kept on. Forced himself. Dragged the story from its box in his mind and laid it bare, rotten and bloated from captivity and age. Let her look it in the eyes. 

By the end, they were both crying. Laurel’s eyes were puffy with tears, her face mascara-lined, her nose snotty. Frank assumed he looked no better. She didn’t leave, though. Didn’t even move from the couch. Just sat. Listened. Waited. 

He felt weightless, after. It was terrifying, dizzying, awful. Amazing. He’d been carved out, scraped clean. It hurt like a bitch, but he felt...free. 

He doesn’t know how long they sat like that, facing each other, crying, silent. Minutes, hours, it didn’t matter. Neither reached out, but a current ran between them, as it always had. Heart to heart. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally. 

He did a double-take. “What?” he said. “You’re...what?” 

“I’m...sorry. About all of it. About what your father did, about what _you_ did, about what _we_ fucking did, because you, you started all of this--” her voice broke. She sobbed. He waited. “It’s disgusting, all of it, and I hate it and I think I’m gonna throw up, but--” she sighed. “But I can’t hate you. I want to-- _shit,_ do I want to--but I can’t. And I hate you for _that.”_

It took Frank awhile to find any words at all. When he did, finally--when his throat opened enough to let anything free-- he looked her in the eye and said “I love you.” 

It was a start; they went from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand I missed my deadline. By now, Laurel's canonical response is out there, and while I haven't watched it yet, I'm sure most of you have. I don't care, though. I'm glad to have finally gotten my idea out.
> 
> This was going to be the end, but I've got a few thousand more words I'll probably add, now. It still needs a lot of work, and I don't know if it'll be better with or without a denouement, but we'll see. Any advice would be welcome at chemically-defective.tumblr.com


	25. Chapter 25

Laurel didn’t go home with him that night; he didn’t ask her to. “You okay bein’ alone?” he asked, instead, around midnight, after hours of talk. “I can call the Puppy back, if you need someone…” 

“No,” she said, shaking herself out of half-sleep for probably the fourth time that night. “No, I think I...need to be alone for awhile.” 

“‘Course,” Frank said, standing but not moving from beside the couch. “Yeah. I’ll, uh...tell Annalise not to expect you tomorrow, and--” 

Laurel sighed. “No,” she said, “I’ll...I’m going in. For the trial. Have to. I’m...I’ll be okay. I just...tonight, I need...time. Okay?” 

Frank saw the determination in her tired eyes, and didn’t question it. But… 

“I’ll call in, then,” he said, quietly. “If you want.” 

Laurel stood, then, and faced him. “No,” she said, quietly. “Don’t...don’t.” She reached out for the first time that evening, put a hesitant hand on Frank’s shoulder. He almost flinched, but she held steady. Warm. Real. “I’m not...not tonight. Probably not for awhile, but...I’m not saying no. Okay?” 

Fuck it, he was crying again, and then she was holding him, crying too. “I mean it,” she said, words warm on his shoulder through his shirt. “It’ll take time. And...and you can’t… _rush_ it, okay? You can’t--” 

“Hey,” he said, pulling back but not removing his arms from her shoulders. “Hey. I won’t. You just...let me know, and I’ll...I’ll be there. Okay?” 

She smiled, then; a tiny, broken, faltering smile through tears, but _there._ “Go,” she said. “Get some...goddamn sleep. Jesus. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He does not remember the drive home, the walk up to his apartment, his shower or the moment his head hit the pillow. He fell asleep, though, to Laurel’s smile on a loop, the lingering heat of her arms around him. 

*** 

The next morning, Annalise barely glanced Frank’s way when he arrived, just handed him a box of files on her way out the door. “Meet me at the courthouse in half an hour,” she said, “with the others. I need to prep everyone one last time, can’t be late. And Frank?” She met his eyes, then. “They don’t know anything. If they ask, leave it to Bonnie. Understood?” 

Frank nodded. Tried a smile, but let it fail. Watched her walk away. 

All eyes were on him when he entered. Wes’s shot daggers; Connor smirked through his usual haze of doom; Michaela appeared physically pained, squirming in her seat; and Asher, as usual, looked about seven, all eager curiosity. 

Laurel sat apart from them; looked, but did not gawk. Returned to scribbling on her notebook while the others just kept staring. 

“So...uh...spill,” Asher said, finally. “What did you do?” 

“Got drunk,” Frank said, smirking. Eight hours, he’d gotten, and he was back. Mostly. “Waaay too drunk. And in front of you assholes.” 

Michaela’s eyes snapped to his. “And that warranted a half-hour meeting with Annalise, Bonnie, _and_ the client?” 

“Unrelated,” he said. “‘S there coffee?” 

Connor followed him when he headed for the kitchen, Asher in tow. “Should we expect more cops?” Connor asked, hovering just slightly too close. “FBI, maybe? You seem like a man who’d cross state lines.” 

Frank chuckled, pouring himself a cup of scorched coffee. “If I tell you,” he said, “I’ll have to kill you.” 

_God,_ he’d missed flippancy. 

“Dude,” Asher said, “seriously. AK looked mad pissed, and Laurel--” 

“Leave it,” Frank said, darkening his voice just enough to spook the kid. 

“But--” 

“He said leave it,” Bonnie said, from where she stood in the hallway. _Waiting?_ “Get your things; we’re already late.” As the kids filed out, Bonnie shot him a look: exasperation tinged with worry. “How’d it go?” she asked. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. Dismissal with hints of _thank you_ and _don’t worry._ She read it loud and clear. Smiled, just a bit. Pushed past him, out the door. 

They arrived just minutes before the judge. Frank passed his box across the wooden wall to Annalise; she nodded in thanks. He scanned her face for hints of pain, of betrayal, of resentment. Nothing obvious--she was _on,_ performing already--but he saw the cracks, the holes in her facade. She smiled gently, but it wasn’t real. Frank looked away. 

Logan turned to him, next. Smiled. Fucking smiled. He made his face a mask. _Let her read that._

He wished he didn’t want to thank her, just a bit. 

The trial went as planned, to the note, pitch perfect. Annalise called for reason, for logic; reminded the jury of the burden of proof. Pointed out what the prosecution did not have: DNA, forensic evidence, anyone to place Logan at the scene. Finally, the character witnesses went up, one by one, to sing Logan’s praises. Frank watched the jury; watched them soften, sniffle. Watched one straight-up sob at the refugee woman’s testimony. _Gotcha._

The prosecution’s lynchpin--the patient file full of obscenities--was shot down with a wave of the hand. “Imagine,” Annalise said, in her closing statements, “that you’ve been listening, all day, to the horror stories of veterans, of child soldiers and cult victims and the horrifically abused. Imagine that you’ve been expected, all day, to keep a straight face, to remain objective, to smile sympathetically and keep it all inside. Imagine, then, that you have a piece of paper in front of you, a page you expect no one will ever read. What would you write? Would you keep it all in, even silently? Are you sure?” 

Melissa Logan was freed after two hours of deliberation. 

“Thank you,” she said, gripping Annalise’s hand in both of hers. “Thank you so much.” 

Annalise raised an eyebrow when she smiled. “You’re welcome,” she said, and lower: “Don’t forget.” 

As they passed, one last time, in the courthouse entranceway, Logan handed Frank a business card. “Call me,” she said, “when you’re ready. I’ll help you.” 

Frank did not respond. Did not give her the satisfaction. As he walked away, he tore the card in half, then fourths. Dumped the pieces in the nearest trash can. 

*** 

Annalise sent the kiddies home after trial. “We’ve got a new client coming in tomorrow,” she said. “Rest up. Come back ready to work.” Odd looks all around at that--at Frank, at Bonnie, at Annalise, shit, at _Laurel_ \--but they went without comment. Laurel held Frank’s gaze for a moment, but turned away, walked off with the others. Frank nodded at her receding back; waited till she was out of sight to enter the house with the others. 

He was quickly becoming used to awkward silences where none belonged. Between lovers. Among family. Knew he deserved it. Gritted his teeth. Finally, Annalise spoke. “You told her?” 

Frank nodded. 

“And she came back.” Another nod. Annalise sat down, leaned back, looking almost relaxed. Didn’t smile, but let her features soften. “Well, congratulations, Frank,” she said. “You found a girl dumb enough to fall in love with you.” 

Frank suppressed a grin; hadn’t been expecting it, but there it was. “I’m...shit, Annalise, I’m--” 

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s over. You fucked up--we all fucked up--but he’s dead, he deserved it, and you…” She sighed. “You’re still here. Can I still trust you?” 

Frank looked up at her. Met her eyes. Nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I...I’m not that guy. Anymore. I--” 

_“Don’t._ You’ll never lie to me again. I ask you a question, you answer it. Every time. Is that clear?” 

“Crystal. I--” 

_“Stop.”_ It came from Bonnie, that time. Frank looked to her; found her almost smiling, carrying a bottle of vodka and three glasses. “Sit. Drink.” 

She poured them each a drink, then, and they spent the evening in a silence. 

Somehow, it barely hurt. 

*** 

It was six weeks before Laurel returned to Frank’s place, duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “Hi,” she said, standing in the doorway, voice low. 

“Hi.” 

They just stood for awhile, on opposite sides of the door frame, until finally, she angled herself inside. “Can I…?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, please. Can _I_ …?” He reached for her bag, and she handed it over. 

They both tried to speak at once, then, fast-aborted syllables, followed by more silence. 

“It’s still...bad,” she said, finally. “I...I have nightmares, sometimes. About…” 

Frank nodded. “Me too.” 

Laurel sighed. “It’s like I can...see her, even though...shit. I--” 

“If you’re not ready,” Frank said, forcing hope out of his voice, “It’s okay. You don’t have to--” 

“No,” she said. “No, I...I am. It won’t get better, I don’t think, until...until I face it, so...here I am. Facing it.” 

She approached, then. He set her bag down, went to meet her. Set his hands on her waist, loosely, gently, until she settled into him, head under his chin. Sighed. 

“Thank you,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t. It’s not...it’s not a favor. I...missed you.” 

Before, he might have made a come-on, pulled her closer, grabbed her ass, stepped backward, backward, toward the bedroom. Instead, he brought a hand up to her hair, held a handful in a loose fist. Kissed the crown of her head. Held on tight. 

“Missed you too.” 

*** 

Frank hadn’t been to see his family in nearly five months. The distance was nothing new, really--for years, since he’d started working for Annalise, it had been Sunday dinner once a month or three, church on Christmas and Easter; money sometimes, too, and phone calls, but nothing more. He was busy. Since Lila, though...well. Seeing them all--dad, especially--had been worse. That night, months ago, when he’d brought Laurel, he hadn’t relaxed all night; had realized how fucking stupid it was the minute they’d walked through the door. He’d made his excuses after that, over and over, till the calls had stopped coming. 

A month and change after Laurel’s return, though, his mother called. “Oh, Frankie,” she said. He could hear the tears in her voice; tensed. “Your dad. He’s...he’s real sick.” 

Frank’s mind went quiet. He felt the waves licking at his ankles, but pushed them back. Closed his eyes. “Shit. What--” 

“They’re not sure,” she said, “but...there’s a lump. In his...in his lung. The left one.” 

“Fuck.” 

They were silent for awhile, then, just breathing together. Frank rested his head on the wall. Tried to keep his breathing steady. Finally, his mother spoke. “We’re doin’ dinner,” she said, “this weekend. Havin’ everyone over. All the cousins, everyone. I thought you could bring that girl, what’s her name, Laura--” 

“Laurel,” he said. From across the room, the woman in question looked up from her textbook, curious; Frank waved her back to work. “I’ll, uh, I’ll check. I can come, but she might--” 

“Frankie,” she said, “Please. He likes her. Wants to see her again. Wants to get to know her. Talk her into it, alright? For me?” 

“Sure,” he said. Didn’t think. Couldn’t. Didn’t know what else to fucking say. “Yeah. I’ll...I will. Look, should I...you want me to come over now? I can--” 

“No,” she said, “no, I haven’t...cleaned, it’s a mess here. This weekend. I’ll do lasagna, pie, all of it. Okay?” 

Frank nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll...we’ll be there.” 

Laurel was beside him when he hung up the phone. “Who was that?” she asked. _Shit._

“My ma,” he said. “She, uh...she wants us over for dinner, this weekend.” 

Laurel stiffened. “Frank, I--” 

“He’s sick,” Frank said, and immediately regretted it. _Don’t guilt her. Don’t fucking put it on her. Don’t--_ “My dad. He, uh...ma says he wants to...see us. See you. It might be nothin’, but she--” 

Laurel took a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Can I…?” 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Say the word, I’ll tell her you got the flu.” 

She looked up at him, then; he saw it hit her. “Shit, Frank, I’m...I’m sorry, I just--” 

“Don’t,” he said, taking an arm gently in each hand. “It’s...I’m alright. You just...let me know.” 

She loosed her arms from his grip, then, only to come closer, wrap them around him, under his arms, over his shoulders, bracing him against her. “Tell me what you need,” she said, gently. 

He thought, for a minute, about what the hell he _did_ need. _Booze? Drugs? Sex? Space? Emptiness, the ocean, no sound, no light, no memories, no--_ “I’ll let you know,” he said. 

*** 

He dreamed, that night, of the first time. The cold, the busted car radiator, the inside, painting on the wall, the body, the body, the body. His father, over it. Him. It. Straining. Stretching. Winning. 

He woke to Laurel shaking his shoulder. “Wake up,” she said, voice soft but commanding, insistent. “You’re dreaming. Wake up. It’s okay, you’re here, you’re fine, wake up.” 

“‘M awake,” he said. “Dream. Go back to sleep.” 

She leaned over him, propped up on one elbow; looked into his eyes. Her own were intent. Solemn. “You were talking to him,” she said. “Your dad.” 

_Fuck._

Frank groaned. “What’d I say?” 

“‘Stop,’” she said, one hand going to his chest. “‘Don’t.’ ‘Leave him be.’” 

Frank sighed. “Go back to sleep,” he said. “It’s nothin’.” 

She waited a few moments--just kept staring at him, scanning his face, waiting for a reaction, a real one--then released her elbow, let herself fall back into the pillows behind her. “I’m here,” she said, almost too quietly to hear. 

“I know.” 

Three days and two nightmares later, she agreed to go to dinner. 

“You sure?” he said. Gave her one more out. “You don’t have to. I can--” 

“If you don’t want me to,” she said, “just say so.” 

And he didn’t. He really fucking didn’t. She’d been through enough. Didn’t need to sit across from his fucking dad, talk and eat and drink with him, after what Frank had told her. Didn’t need to play nice, to grit her teeth and bear it. 

But she’d been asking, every night, with her voice or her eyes or her hands on his body, what the hell she could do, and he hadn’t had shit to give her. _Type A,_ he thought, each time. _Needs a task._

“No,” he said. “It’ll make ‘em happy. Thank you.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some discussion of terminal cancer in this chapter. Nothing graphic, but it's there.

They arrived just before seven two days later, Frank carrying a bouquet of daisies, Laurel a bottle of red. They strode up like it was nothing, sure, but on the doorstep, they stopped. Frank turned to Laurel, took her elbow in his free hand. Met her eyes. 

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?” 

Laurel let her breath out shakily. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. You?” 

Frank shook his head. “‘M fine,” he said. “‘S not about me. Are _you--”_

“It _is_ about you, Frank. He’s--” 

The door opened, then, no knock required. Thank the good lord, it was Frank’s mother. “Frankie!” she said, rushing toward him, pulling him into her arms, heedless of the flowers. He felt the tension in her arms when he hugged back, the boozy sigh against his shoulder. “Oh, Frankie, it’s good to see you.” She pulled back, then, and turned to Laurel. “And _Laurel!_ Honey, I’m so glad you could come.” 

Laurel returned her smile, toothy, almost reaching her eyes. Good enough, to fool his mother, Frank knew, but he could see the nerves beneath, the vein on her forehead set to burst. “Mrs. Del...Marie! Good to see--” 

She was engulfed in a hug then, too, tight, and when Frank’s mother pulled back, she left one arm over Laurel’s shoulder. “Come in, come in! Everyone’s here. Is that _wine?_ Oh, you know what I like. Better than Frank-- _flowers,_ Frankie? Is this senior prom?” 

Frank grinned, followed the women inside. Restrained himself, somehow, from reaching for Laurel’s free hand. Knew it wouldn’t help. Knew that what was coming was coming and that all he could do was watch it happen. 

The room was full to the brim with Delfinos of all ages, children tumbling and chasing, aunts and uncles and cousins perched on every available surface. The noise was familiar and, on some level, comforting. He knew these voices, these faces, and loved them. The dissonance, though--Laurel among them, face tight and tense through laughter and handshakes and fond introductions--was too much. He followed close behind his mother and Laurel as they made their rounds, near hovering. 

“Don,” his mother called, finally, voice cutting through the clamor of the room. “Frankie’s here, with Laurel!” 

_Fuck._

Frank’s father wheeled himself into the room, then, all smiles. “Laurel!” he said. He sounded almost conspiratorial; Frank remembered how well they’d gotten along last time, how they’d joked together at his expense, and how he’d let it happen, smiled along, been _glad._

He looked to Laurel, but couldn’t see beyond her smile anymore. “Don!” she said, voice just a little too bright. “Hi! It’s good to see you.” 

Frank’s father held his arms out expectantly. “You too, hon,” he said, “C’mere, c’mere.” 

And she went to him. And she hugged him. And she kept on fucking smiling. 

“Oh,” Frank’s mother said, after a beat, “let’s get those in a vase, and open _that_ up--is that red? Good girl! You want a glass now? We’ve also got white, some beer, whiskey, if you’re up for that already...Don, what else have we got?” She rattled all this off without pause, walking backwards into the kitchen. _Afraid,_ Frank knew. _Of silence. Of any fucking discussion of what this party’s all about._

Laurel followed her. “I’ll have red,” she said, “thank you. Do you need any help? Frank, do you want a drink? I can--” 

“Nah,” he said. “Maybe later. You don’t have to--” 

She shot him a look; he shut up. 

And so Frank was left alone with his father. His sick father. His dying father, probably. God, he wanted that whiskey. 

“Ehh, don’t give me that look,” his father said. “You think I can’t see that? I’m sick, not blind. Stop it.” 

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Frank said, but there was no oomph to it, no tone to back it up. 

His father’s face softened, slightly, in a way only Frank would ever notice. “Hey,” he said. “Buck up. For your ma. You know how she is. Just...put it away, alright?” 

Frank nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Yeah. How you feelin’, though? ‘Fore she gets back.” 

“I’m alright. Breathin’s...hard, but hell, I smoked. Shoulda known this was comin’. It’s not so bad, though. Got some pain meds that almost make it worth it. Hah.” His laughter dissolved into coughs, but he did not stop smiling through it. 

Frank did not respond. Did not laugh. Tried not to think about the karmic justice of this man gasping for breath in the end. 

*** 

Dinner was ready soon after. Frank’s mother had borrowed two long folding tables from church, and when it was time, she recruited Frank and his brothers to set them up. The end result was awkward--the only way to fit the damn things in a row in their little house was at an angle between the kitchen and the living room, half-blocking movement from one room to another. 

When it was done, though--when everyone, fucking everyone was gathered, digging into an army-sized pan of lasagna--it was...good. Frank let himself relax a little. Laurel sat beside him, free hand in his, and his father was at the other end entirely, making goofy faces at the younger kids. Frank chatted on and off with Tony and his wife about work and the kids and their new place across town; Laurel struck up a conversation with Brandi, of all people, about what sounded like the pitfalls of U.S. drug policy. The tension remained--for Frank and Laurel, obviously, and, hell, probably for everyone over the age of 14, everyone who knew what fucking cancer was--but it was gentled somewhat by food and booze and laughter. Frank saw his mother’s shoulders ease, her brow uncrease. Saw her looking pointedly at Laurel’s hand in his, then up to his eyes, far more times than was strictly necessary to communicate her satisfaction. 

Dinner didn’t last, though, and when the last of the food was gone, the crowd dispersed, paper plates of pie and cobbler in hand, to the living room from whence they’d come. Within a few minutes, only Frank, Laurel, and Franks mom remained in the kitchen. Frank wanted to run off, too, to grab them a slice of pie and two forks and make for the nearest dark, quiet corner, but Laurel was Laurel. “Let me help you,” she said, picking up a dishtowel and settling herself beside Frank’s mother. 

“Honey,” she said, sounding scandalized, “has Frank been pullin’ that bull at his place, makin’ guests clean up?” She turned to Frank, feigning a scowl. “Frankie, get your girlfriend some pie and some booze, let her enjoy the party. You, too. Get outta here.” 

Frank and Laurel exchanged looks over the pies on the counter--looks that said _don’t you fucking leave me alone out there_ and _what the hell am I supposed to do?_ and _fucking shit_ and _I know and I love you and I’m sorry but just avoid him okay?_ Finally, Laurel glanced past Frank, smiled awkwardly at his mom, and scooped herself some cobbler. “Oh, he never lets me help either,” she said. “His cooking’s not as good as yours, though. Thank you again for dinner.” 

One last lingering look, and she was gone. Thrown to the wolves. Into the lion’s den. 

Frank shuddered, but forced himself to put the thought away. Returned his attention to his mother, who just handed him a dish towel and stared into the suds. 

For ten minutes or so, they worked in silence. Ma washed, he dried. It was a soothing rhythm, and Frank let his mind float gently on the wine from dinner. Finally, though, Frank’s mother took a deep breath and began to speak. “He’s dying,” she said. Quiet, shaky, but sure. “They say treatment at his age...that it’s best to just keep him comfortable.” 

Frank had known; of course he had. Had figured, when he got the call, days before; had been sure when he’d heard the rasp of his father’s voice earlier that evening, his talk of pain pills and keeping quiet for his ma. This, though...hearing her say the words out loud, for real...he sighed. Heard the shake in his own voice. “Shit,” he said. “I’m...sorry, ma. Shit.” 

She set the sponge down, then, and reached for Frank’s hand over the sink’s divider. “Me too. They don’t know _when,_ you know--could be months--but...it’s not good, Frankie. Less than a year.” 

He squeezed her hand, rubbed his thumb over its back, not knowing what the hell to say. Didn’t dare look over at her. Knew what he’d see, and couldn’t. 

Finally, she pulled her hand back, reclaimed her sponge, and went back to scrubbing. “I’m glad you brought Laurel,” she said. “Your dad likes her. A lot. Me too.” Frank heard a hint of a smile in her voice, then, and chanced a look. “Can tell,” he said. 

“What’s it been, now,” she went on, “seven months? Eight?” 

_Well, it got rocky sometimes, around all the murders and cover-ups and cheating and lying, but yeah, thereabouts, if you round up._ “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

Her smile broadened. “Serious?” 

“Yeah,” Frank said, taking the plate she handed him. “It’s...it’s goin’ well.” 

“Good.” Her voice sounded sad again, though; Frank tensed. “Wish we saw more of you. Both of you.” 

“Me too,” Frank said, setting the now-dry plate aside and and reaching for the next. “It’s just...work, you know, and--” 

“I know,” she said, voice gentle. “That job...we’re proud of you. All of us. But Frank...now? These next few...weeks, months...we really need you here, alright? Just...make an effort.” 

Frank nodded. Blinked back the tears he hadn’t been expecting. Didn’t know what to do with. Didn’t _want._ “I will,” he said. “I’ll...we got a case on, but when I get a chance, I'll...I will.” 

“Thank you,” his mother said, handing him the last large pan to dry. The tears in her voice were unignorable, but she sounded satisfied. “I...thank you. Is Laurel still working there, too? For Annalise?” 

_Laurel. Fuck._

“Uh, yeah,” Frank said. “Reminds me, I should go--” 

His mother smiled through tears, cut him off. “Go,” she said. “Your dad’s probably tellin’ her all about your gawky years by now, how long you went on wettin’ your bed. Saw him take a bottle out there with him, too, son of a bitch.” 

Frank hugged her, kissed her cheek...and fucking bolted for the living room. 

*** 

Frank found Laurel predictably cornered, bracketed loosely by the arm of the couch, his father’s chair, and conventional social niceties. Her back was to him, but he could see his father’s face: flushed red and laughing, leaning in, patting Laurel’s knee to punctuate his slurred words. 

“Hey,” Frank said, navigating carefully between the chair and the couch to insert himself beside her. “How’s it goin’?” 

“You,” his father said, gesturing to Frank with the tumbler in his hand, “are a lucky sonofabitch. You remember that, alright? This woman--this woman! Smart. Funny. Damn sight better looking than your ugly mug.” He laughed; met Laurel’s eyes. “Goddamn. What do you see in this one, anyway?” 

Laurel was tense beside him; she had not looked Frank’s way, and they were not touching, save for their legs pressed together on the couch, but he could feel a harsh current running through her all the same. He set his hand on her leg, gently, leaving plenty of opportunity for her to shake it off; she didn’t. Reached for it, instead. Squeezed tight. “Hell if I know,” Frank said. Grinned. 

“Well, don’t take it for granted, you hear me?” He coughed, nearly doubled over, but recovered within seconds, poured himself another three shots or so, and offered the bottle around. They both refused. “Not everyone gets that, you know? Look at me; stuck with your ma.” Another laugh. “Kidding! Kidding. God bless her. God fuckin’ bless her.” 

Frank turned to Laurel, then, during his father’s next coughing fit. Examined her face for hints of imminent panic; found none. Instead, he saw steel, a resigned strength well hidden beneath a gentle smile. He let out a breath. Smiled back. 

“Oh, young love,” Frank’s father said, wheeze segueing into a laugh. “You two need a room?” 

Laurel laughed along, pulled her eyes from Frank’s and looked to his father. “Sorry,” she said. “Got distracted. _Not_ like that. I do need the bathroom, though; ‘scuse me.” 

Frank moved to let her pass, then settled himself into the place she’d vacated. _Once she’s back,_ he promised himself, _I’ll make our excuses. Won’t make her sit down again. Cut this short. End it while it’s all okay._ “So,” he said. 

“So.” 

Frank saw it coming; saw the shadow cross his father’s face, an impossible sobriety in his eyes. He steeled himself; tried to summon some of the goddamn calm he’d seen in Laurel’s face. Failed. 

His father looked around before leaning in, elbows on his knees, and gestured for Frank to lean in, too. When he finally spoke, his face was a foot from Frank’s. His breath was boozy, his voice cold, when he let loose those four hard words: “What does she know?” 

Frank sat up straight, then, looked down at the man before him with a look of practiced offense. “Nothin’,” he said. “Jesus. What, you think I--” 

“Don’t you lie to me, Frankie. Tell me. _What does she know?”_

“Nothing. Dad, I wouldn’t--” 

“You _would._ You _did._ Girl’s all wound up, can’t quite meet my eyes...she knows somethin’. Now how the hell could that happen, ‘less you--” 

“You ever consider that maybe she just doesn’t like you?” Frank quipped. “Look, I didn’t say shit, alright? You’re drunk. Drunk and paranoid.” 

They just stared, then, eyes into eyes for probably a minute. Neither moved. Finally, though, Frank’s father burst out laughing again. “You really didn’t, did you? Shit. Good boy. _Good_ boy.” He patted Frank’s knee; Frank clenched his fists at his sides. 

His father sighed, a wheezing sigh, and settled back into his chair. “‘M sorry, Frankie. Had to know, though. Had to check.” He met Frank’s eyes again. “You _won’t_ tell her, either. You won’t.” 

“‘Course not,” Frank said. “What, you think she’d...you think she’d want me if I…? Nah. Never.” 

Another fucking laugh. “Like I said, _damn_ lucky. Both of us.” 

Frank nodded. “Know that,” he said. “She’s...I know.” 

“You love her?” 

Frank saw Laurel returning from the bathroom, then; let out a quiet sigh in relief. “I do,” he said. “And...I won’t. Trust me. Please.” 

His father smiled, a true smile, drunk and pleased and...proud. “Good boy.” 

Laurel did not move to reclaim her seat, did not even cross behind Frank’s father’s chair. “Frank,” she said, “I don’t feel so good. I hate do this, but I think I’ll cut out early, take a cab home, alright? You stay--tell your mom I said thanks again for dinner--but--” 

“Nah,” Frank said, moving to stand. “I should head out too. We both got work tomorrow. Dad, I’ll...I’ll be back around soon, alright? Promise.” 

Frank’s dad watched him scoot around the chair, maneuver his oversized frame through the small space without moving to accommodate him. Waited until Frank was free to wheel around and face them both. “Sure,” he said, “Sure. And bring her with you, alright? We need more charm around here. Good to see you again, Laurel. You keep him in line, alright?” 

Laurel smiled. Hesitated before him, but acceded easily when he leaned forward for a hug. “Good to see you too, Don,” she said. “Sorry, again, for cutting out early. I’ll see you soon.” 

They swung by the kitchen to say goodbye to Frank’s mother, who pressed about seven tupperware containers into Frank’s arms. “Come back soon,” she said, kissing each of their cheeks. “Please.” Frank promised he would, Laurel complimented the meal again, and they made their escape. 

Back in the car, Laurel let out the longest breath he’d ever heard her hold, deflated beside him in the passenger seat. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t...I really couldn’t. You didn’t have to come with me. I...I’m sorry.” 

He reached for her face, then, rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone, and leaned over to kiss her, gently. “Hey,” he said, “it’s alright. It’s fine. _Thank_ you. I...I needed to get out, too. It’s good. It’s fine, alright?” 

She sighed. “Yeah. Yeah. Did he...he didn’t...know, did he? Didn’t figure out that I…? I tried. To...to be normal, but…” 

Frank shook his head. “He loved you,” he said. “You did fine. Now, let’s go. I want sleep. Fuckin’ exhausted.”


	27. Chapter 27

The call came two weeks later, during Frank and Laurel’s drive to work. Frank answered, listened for a few seconds, then swerved to the shoulder, put the car in park, and handed Laurel the keys without looking at her. He got out of the car, still silent, and set off walking. 

Laurel turned on the flashers, set the parking brake, and followed him. “What?” She asked. “What’s going on?” He did not acknowledge her, just began speaking quietly to his brother on the other line. “Yeah. I’ll...I’ll be there. Just gimme...thirty minutes, alright? Shit, I’ll...I’ll see you soon, alright? Okay...okay, bye.” 

Laurel was not stupid; Frank could see understanding spread across her face as he put the phone away, sat down on the curb, and ran his hands through his hair before letting them fall to his lap. “Oh, shit,” she said, sitting beside him, reaching out a hand to cover his clenched fist. “Frank, I--” 

“‘S okay,” Frank muttered. “I’ll...I gotta go over there. I’ll drop you off on the way; tell Annalise I won’t be in. I’ll call you if--”

“No,” Laurel said. “I’ll...I’ll come with you. We’ll both call in. You shouldn’t be…” 

Frank met her eyes, then, removed his hand gently from her grasp. “No,” he said. “I...I gotta do this alone, alright? It’s not...thank you, but...no.” 

Laurel sighed. Scooted closer. Rested her head on Frank’s shoulder. Reached, once more, for his hand. They sat like that for probably ten minutes, until Laurel stood, reaching back down to pull him up with her. “Let’s go,” she said. “I’ll drive.” 

He followed her lamely, sat beside her in the cold car while she drove him to his own old doorstep. Kept on fucking sitting till she moved to get out herself, to go in headfirst with him. “No,” he said, then, voice almost angry. “Don’t. I’m going.” 

“Sorry,” she said, readjusting her seatbelt. 

“No,” he said. “I’m not...I just…” 

“It’s okay,” she said. “Go. I’ll pick you up after work. Call me if you...anything. Just...call me. Okay?” 

He nodded, got out, and watched her drive away. 

*** 

His mother had found the body that morning, lying beside her in bed. The morgue men had taken his temperature, she said, and told her he’d been gone about three hours. 

“He was _cold,”_ she said, half leaning on Johnny as she wept. “I woke up and I touched his shoulder and he was cold. I never...I didn’t know, I was _asleep.”_

Tony sat on her other side, holding the hand not reaching for tissue after tissue; Brandi sat on the footstool at her knee, holding the box. Frank did not know where to place himself in the scene; just stood across from them, arms held awkward at his sides. “‘M...sorry,” he said. 

Johnny met his eye then. “They, uh, need someone over at the...home, soon, to fill out some forms,” he said. “Think you could…?” 

Frank’s mother pushed herself away from Johnny’s shoulder at that, sat up straight and shot her oldest an affronted glare. “Don’t you...that’s his _father,_ all of your father. I can...I can do it. You can drive me, and I’ll…” 

“Ma,” Frank said, “It’s fine. I can do it. It’ll be a lot of legal jargon, shit like that, and if anyone’s used to that…I’ll do it. Shouldn’t take long. Alright?” 

She stood, then, and embraced him. “Thank you, Frankie,” she said, quietly, so only he could hear. “Thank you.” 

He took his father’s old car to the funeral home, where a small, balding man patted his shoulder and spouted dumbshit euphemisms until Frank was about ready to hit him. 

“Just...tell me what I need to do, alright? What boxes I need to tick, forms I need to sign. I don’t have a lot of time.” 

The man just blinked at him for a few seconds, as though still waiting for fucking tears or a thank you, but Frank’s steady gaze finally threw him, and he handed over the paperwork. 

It didn’t take long after that. His mother told him, when he called to ask, that no, they couldn’t _burn_ her husband, that he’d be buried in the family plot with his own father, goddammit, so that was that. The release forms were easy enough--one option: go ahead and cut him open, just sew him up after and make him look pretty. Done. Twenty minutes later, Frank was sent home with about fifteen pamphlets about caskets and headstones and floral arrangements. “To discuss,” the man said, “when you’re all ready.” Frank stuffed them in his back pocket and walked away. 

On the way back home, Frank checked his phone, saw that he’d missed a call: Annalise. _Fuck her,_ he thought. Kept driving. 

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Church women filed in and out and in again, bearing shitty casseroles and platitudes, making his ma feel worse, seemed like. The others--Johnny, Tony, even Brandi--were better at this, way better. Frank almost wanted to go into work, after all. _When the others’ flights get in,_ he thought, _I’ll slip out in the crowd._ He knew he wouldn’t, though; knew he was stuck there till Laurel rescued him, called him home for the night. Knew he’d feel bad even then for leaving. 

Counted down the hours, all the same. 

She finally called around four; he rushed to the bathroom to answer. “Hi,” she said. “How are you...shit. Stupid question. Are you…?” 

“‘M alright,” he said. “It’s…” He turned on the tap to cover up his voice. “I need some air--lotta people, lotta waterworks, you know--but...it’s okay. Annalise called me earlier; what’s goin’ on?” 

Laurel sighed. “She was, uh, checking on you. I told her you might not want to...talk, but she insisted. She’s worried.” 

Frank ran a hand over his face; avoided his own eyes in the mirror. “Tell her I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll call her when...when shit’s calmed down. Shit, I thought it was about a case. Thought maybe you hadn’t told her…” 

“Frank,” Laurel said, tone almost derisive. “I had to tell her. She’s your...I don’t know… _something._ She’s--” 

“No,” Frank said, “you were right. I would’ve answered, it was just...you know.” 

“Yeah,” she said. They were silent for a few minutes, then, just breathing together. “You want me to come over?” She asked, finally. “Or, like...figure out a way to get you out of there?” 

He did. He so did. But… 

“Stay,” he said. “Till you’re done. I can’t...shouldn’t leave. I can make it till you’re done.” 

“You sure?” She asked. He could hear faint voices approaching in the background--Michaela, sounded like, and Asher. Knew his respite was almost over. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine. Go. Work. Make Annalise proud.” He knew she could hear the smirk in his voice; could almost hear her relax, knowing he was himself, still. “Oh,” she said, “of course. What I live for.” She laughed; so did he. “I’ll see you soon.” She lowered her voice, then, and softened it. “I love you, okay?” 

For the first damn time that day, he felt tears pricking the backs of his eyes. “Love you too,” he said, hearing shameful husky sadness in his voice. “Talk to you later.” 

*** 

She texted him at 7 sharp, said she was on her way. Frank looked to his mother, to his siblings--all of them, now--and gestured to the door. “It’s...it’s Laurel,” he said. “I’ve gotta…” 

“Frank,” Johnny said, voice admonishing. “Stay. Your coed girlfriend can sleep at her own place for one night, can’t she?” 

“Johnny!” Their mother had been mostly silent for a few hours, but her voice now was sharp and commanding. “Leave him be. Invite her in, Frankie. There’s...plenty of food, and she’s welcome.” Her voice dissolved quickly back into tears; Johnny resumed patting her back. 

“Actually, she, uh...she won’t be able to stay. I’m gonna...head home with her for awhile, if that’s--” 

“Oh, for god’s sakes,” Brandi said, standing from her post and walking to the kitchen. “You’re gonna leave? Now? You’re gonna go home, be with her, on a day like this? Huh? You’re not comin’ back, are you? Your own father, and you’re--” 

“He was my dad,” Frank said. His voice was quiet at first, but he could feel the anger swelling in him, coming up his throat whether he wanted it or not. “He was...my dad, too, and I...I loved him. And I was closer to him than any of you fuckers, and if I wanna go home and...and be alone for a few hours, you all can just...deal, alright? Jesus. I’m sorry, Ma--not you, I just...Jesus. I need--” 

“Go,” she said, standing to meet him, resting her hands on his shoulders and raising her gaze to his face. “Go on. I’m sorry. You’ve always...you need your space. Go home. Rest. Thank you, for everything, today. We’ll...I’ll call you in the morning.” 

Frank sagged under the weight of her...shit, her _sympathy._ “Thanks,” he said, voice barely there. “I...thank you. I’m sorry.” 

“Shut up,” she said, cracking a smile. “Go.” 

He found Laurel idling in the driveway, heat up full blast. “Hi,” she said, when he got in beside her. 

“Hi.” 

They didn’t speak any more than that the whole drive home. Inside, she stripped him of his coat and pushed him toward the sofa. “Sit,” she said. “I ordered takeout. Should be here in a few. Drink?” He nodded, and she went straight for his favorite whiskey, poured him enough for two before grabbing a soda for herself. When she returned to the couch, she sat closer than necessary, handed him his glass, and waited for him to speak. 

It took him awhile, but she didn't rush him. Finally, he cleared his throat, picked a spot on the wall to stare at, and began. “Bastard,” he said. “He was a goddamn bastard, but--” 

“You don’t need to justify it,” she cut in. “Being sad. Missing him. He was...whatever he was, he was your dad, and you can--” 

“I’m not,” he said, voice sharp. Regretted it immediately, but saw that she was not angry, not alarmed. “I’m...I’m not _justifying_ it. This is...just...what I need to say, alright? We weren’t...normal, and this isn’t gonna look normal.” 

“Okay,” she said. Sat back. Faced him. “Go on.” 

He took her hand, then, and held it tight. “He fucked me up,” he said. “Obviously. It’s not...I can’t blame it all on him, not tryin’ to, but I wouldn’t’ve...it wouldn’t’ve been like that, without...what he did. I don’t know what I would’ve been. Different, I guess. Better. But...he was my dad, and...shit, part of me still looked up to him, you know? Even after...even last week. Even yesterday. And hell, if that’s not the most fucked up…” He sighed. Looked down. Waited for her to release his hand. Recoil. 

Instead, she squeezed tighter. “I assume you know about my father,” she said. 

He had not been expecting that. Nodded, though. Made his “Some” sound like an invitation to go on. 

“He’s...he’s done a lot of things that...that I’m not alright with,” she said. He could see the gears turning in her head, choosing her words carefully. “A _lot_ of things. And I know that. But if he died...I think I’d hate him less. I don’t know if I’d hate him at all, after he...” 

“I never hated him,” Frank said. “Mine. Couldn’t, somehow. Don’t now, either. Is that…” 

“No,” she said, quickly, almost desperately. “You can’t...control that, or feel guilty for it. He raised you. He… _made_ you, and aside from...that, you...turned out pretty alright.” She smiled a little at that; he could not quite find itself in him to reciprocate. “Nobody’s all bad,” she said, then, quietly. “Not him. Not my father. Not…” She sighed. “Nobody.” 

The food arrived, then: Indian. Laurel paid the delivery boy, brought in about ten boxes and a quadruple serving of naan, and set the coffee table like they always did at work, with paper plates and a heap of napkins. 

“Bon appetit,” she said, clinking her soda can with his half-empty whiskey. 

“Salud.” 

Over dinner, she rambled: about their new case, Annalise’s proposed tactics, the client’s awful snorting laugh, how Asher had knocked over a box of files while attempting to twerk. She filled the silence, and he fucking loved her for it. 

Finally, around midnight, she stood, took Frank’s glass from him, and carried it, plus all the takeout leftovers, to the kitchen. He stood to follow her, but she motioned him away. “I can handle it,” she said. “Go...take a shower.” 

Frank had to smile, then. “What, you tellin’ me I stink now?” 

“No,” she replied, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. “I’m telling you that whenever you’re upset, you take a shower, then you feel better. And...I want you to feel better.” 

He went to her, then, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Thank you,” he said. His tone was light, almost joking, but he lingered there, mouth beside her ear, hand on her waist, for a moment longer than necessary before heading off to the bathroom. 

When he finished the longest (solo) shower of his damn life, he found Laurel already in bed, pretending to sleep. Wondered if she didn’t want to talk, or if she just knew that he didn’t. Decided he didn’t care. Tucked himself in behind her and turned out the light. 

He didn’t dream of anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be one more chapter after this. I was going to make this the last one, but it got too long. I promise, though, this is leading to An Actual Ending.


	28. Chapter 28

The funeral was well-attended. Frank saw people he hadn’t seen in years; some he’d hoped he’d never see again. Saw Carl, sitting third-row, with the distant relatives and coworkers. He wore a rumpled suit, and looked for all the world like this was a diner and Frank’s father’s body was some stranger in another booth. The other poker guys were there, too, similarly disheveled. Phoning it in. Frank avoided eye contact. 

Behind them, dozens of others. Folks Frank didn’t know at all, or didn’t remember. _Folks they’ve met since I ducked out,_ he realized, swallowing around a bitter knot in his throat. _Since Annalise._

Annalise was not there, nor was Bonnie. He’d told them the date, the location, but...he didn’t blame them. Couldn’t. With all they knew now, with all that had happened...nah. He got it. 

Laurel, though, sat beside him, hand clasping his tight. He couldn’t help but notice how much more comfortable she looked there, then, than she had at dinner, weeks before, when the man of honor was alive and well and suspicious. Her usual air of calm was back, firmly in place; he held it to him like a damn security blanket, gripping her hand yet tighter. 

In years past, he might have retreated into himself, dipped below the waves, disappeared; now, he found he didn’t need to. Didn’t _want_ to. Needed, this time, to be present. Needed to watch it end. 

The sermon was standard-issue: loving husband, father, grandfather, respected by all those who knew him, would be missed. It did the trick, though: Frank’s mother sobbed where she sat, flanked by Brandi and Tony, who were far from stoic themselves. By the time the priest--Frank realized, after some consideration, that he did not know his name--got to Don Delfino’s last days, his optimism and strength as the disease took him, there was hardly a dry eye in the first two pews. 

Frank wasn’t buying it, though; couldn’t. Found himself comparing the priest’s hollow emotional appeals to Annalise’s, to those of the prosecutors she’d gone up against. _Four out of ten,_ he thought. _Good sober expression, but should slow down a little, add a little emphasis._

His mother went up next. Jesus, she looked small at the pulpit; the priest had to adjust the mic down to accommodate her, and Frank gritted his teeth at the noise. She just stood there after that for a solid minute, fumbling with the wad of tissues she’d held in her sleeve all day. When she finally spoke, though--shakily, in fits and starts, her voice too loud in the silent cathedral--Frank felt a sick twist in his gut. _The calm before the storm._

“My husband,” she said, “was...was a good man. A family man. He was...he worked...a lot. But when he was home...he was there. Always. For all of us. Seven kids--seven!--and he never...he kept it together. For us. Food on the table; toys for the kids. He loved us. Loved _me._ I got old, and...and fat, but he…” she sobbed, then, a thick, primal sob. “He loved. So hard. Now I’m...I’m sorry, I just…” She almost stepped down, then, but turned at the last minute, reclaimed the mic. “Goodbye,” she grated out. “Goodbye Don. I’ll...I love you, and I’ll miss you, and...and I’ll see you...” 

Frank hadn’t expected to cry. He really hadn’t. At all. At that last bit, though, he...shit. He felt the tears fall, hot and fat and falling onto his thighs. He turned to Laurel, then, and was surprised to see a shine in her eyes, too, a hint of tears not quite falling. She caught him looking, ducked her head, tried to hide, and he let her. Could feel the shame running off of her in quiet waves, the confusion, the embarrassment, and didn’t want to pile on. Contented himself with pulling their joined hands into his lap, covering them with his free hand, stroking. Gentling. Hypnotizing himself with repetitive motion, with routine. 

His mother passed him on her way back to her seat. She squeezed his shoulder as she passed, and he knew it was time. His turn. He’d promised. (“You were his favorite, Frankie,” she’d said, three days before, as soon as the others were out of earshot. “He’d’ve wanted you to speak.”) Hadn’t thought much of it, really; he’d done worse, far worse. Now, though...shit. 

He squeezed Laurel’s hand once more before standing, unfolding his smudged page of notes, and walking to the pulpit. Steadied himself on the podium. Looked up. Began. 

“I dunno what to say,” he said. Winced; that wasn’t in his script, now crushed in his fist. “I...they said it. The priest. My ma. They...they told you what you need to know about him. He was a good guy. Did well by us. Raised seven alarmingly handsome children.” He got a nervous laugh, then, from the crowd. “I...I loved him. We all loved him. You know what, though?” He paused. Waited a beat. “He was also an ass.” 

Jarring silence, then; Frank caught Johnny shooting daggers at him, saw his wife beside him physically covering their youngest’s ears. _Shit._ Too late, though; he couldn’t leave it at that. Had to press on. Had to. “He was! He...he’d have wanted me to say it. You all knew him; you know he would’ve. If I’d come up here, said all the same stuff Ma and the father said, he’d’ve spit, laughed, and called me...well. He’d’ve said some things I don’t wanna repeat in church, you know?” More laughter, then. It spurred him on; he felt himself reading the crowd, gaining confidence. Channeling Annalise. “He was...not a perfect man. He did good, but...nah, he wasn’t perfect. I never met a man who was, though, and you know what? If I did...even if I did, I think I’d prefer Dad. And then...he died like he lived: shruggin’ off all the bull...all the crap. Kept on smilin’, makin’ jokes. So now? Now I’m gonna end this. ‘M not gonna say any emotional crap. I’m gonna sit back down, give the father his little pulpit back...and I’m gonna keep smilin’ too.” He’d lost awareness, at some point, of the tears still falling; was shocked, for a moment, when he tasted them through his put-on smirk. He didn’t falter, though; just stepped back and headed back to his seat. 

Laurel couldn’t seem to decide how to respond when he got back to her side: her tears had spilled over, but her attempt at a disapproving glare could not quite hide a mischievous smile. She reached for his arm when he sat, linking it with hers and holding tight. 

It was more or less over after that: the priest muttered some closing remarks and directed them all to the nearby cemetery for the casket-lowering, then retreated into the wings, leaving them all to file out on their own. 

“You’re a bastard,” Laurel muttered, standing without releasing Frank’s arm. She was smiling full-on by then, though, and he couldn’t help but smile back. “You really are. Go talk to your mom; I’ll meet you outside.” 

“Yes ma’am,” Frank said. He watched her walk away. 

Frank’s mother smacked his arm when he reached her before enveloping him in a hug. “Dammit, Frankie,” she said. “Shoulda known you’d pull some shit. Shoulda known.” She pulled back, then. “Thank you. Now, let’s go, before Johnny whoops your ass.” 

*** 

Frank had never handled a body in a casket before; it was surprisingly heavy, even with all his brothers’ help. Some men met them at the hole with a special machine to lower the thing the requisite six feet, and Frank was more than happy to leave it to them. _They just gotta make it complicated, don’t they?_ he thought, rubbing his sore, sweaty hands on his pants as he walked away. _Dad would have hated that._

The priest said a few more words at the gravesite--ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all that--then sprinkled the first handful of dirt over the casket before inviting the rest of them to join in. Frank ignored his mother’s proddings, Laurel’s, his siblings’, to go with the first wave, insisting that he needed a minute. Waiting. 

Laurel followed behind him when the time came, but stopped short a few feet from the hole, releasing his hand and catching his eye: offering, but not insisting, on accompanying him to the edge. He shook his head; needed to do this one last thing alone. 

He’d considered putting it on the body proper, in the casket, before they closed the lid. Had decided against it, though; didn’t want to risk any last-minute questions. _Dirt’s good enough,_ he’d decided. _Beats the river, anyway._

It made no noise when he dropped it; there was enough dirt on the coffin by then to deaden the clink of metal on wood. He dropped more on top of it, after, enough to cover St. Christopher’s face, hide it even from the guy who’d drive the earth-mover later in the day. Burying it, once and for all. 

“Protection,” he muttered, before walking away.


End file.
